No Man's Son

by Doris Sutcliffe Adams

“My maidenhead is not so cheap a bargain!”

  His pale eyes flicked to her face in surprise, and then his lips curled in a sneer. He did not believe she was a maiden. Behind her back she caught the hilt of her dagger, and then checked. He was getting to his feet, his insolent face unperturbed, his eyes vicious. Knight’s daughter or not, in his experience only one sort of girl followed the tail of an army, and such should not discourteously deny themselves to gentlemen who condescended to waste eloquence on courtly wooing. She could follow his thoughts without difficulty, and knew his determination to possess her now by craft, treachery or force. She had made an unprincipled and deadly foe.

  “Fair Rodriga, your cruelty pierces me to the heart,” he declared. “Yet the devotion you have spurned is yours, until some day you accept it.” His eyes roved over her tense body in insolent appraisal.

  “Your duty summons you,” she answered sternly, drawing back her skirts from any chance of contact. Sheer hatred flashed in his eyes for a moment. Then he laughed mirthlessly and stalked to the door.

  Rodriga paused only to blister Helga. “You witless dolt, what possessed you to admit any man without leave?”

  “B-but I thought you liked him—such a fine gentleman!” she wailed. Rodriga checked herself from throttling the wench and sped to Landry’s side. He had heard already from Urraca what was toward, and was sitting up against his cushions, very grim in the face.

  “The Devil grill that unlicked cub with only room for one thought in his skull at once!” he growled, and then heard her out in silence. “What is done is done,” he declared, “and no use throwing blame or boulders.”

  “He will have told his master.”

  “Pah! Turned up prettier vermin under a flat stone!”

  “His price for silence was my maidenhead, and nothing less would have satisfied him.”

  “Lecherous Judas! Rodriga, you stir not from this house unguarded!”

  “But, Holy Virgin, why should they pester me?” she cried.

  His mouth twitched. “Why not?”

  “But I am dark and thin and plain, and I cannot simper and flatter, and I am not meek or soft-spoken, and I walk abroad with a javelin—and—and—oh, you know all I lack! So why should he and Piers be so hot?”

  He laughed until the tears ran. “If you do not know, lass, it is not for me to enlighten you, but I assure you the enchantment is potent!” he choked. Then his face changed. Ramiro was at the doorway.

  “The lord of Veragny, my lady.”

  Landry nodded, and she went soberly down to the courtyard with a void where her stomach should have been. She curtseyed respectfully to the cripple as she owed it to his rank and years. He was not her enemy yet.

  He cut short her formal greeting with an impatient gesture, his face more eloquent of distress than anger. “Demoiselle,” he said abruptly, “I will not believe a word of my seneschal’s accusations until I hear it from your own lips. Are you the leman of my father’s bastard?”

  “I am virgin, my lord!” she answered fiercely.

  “My child, I ask your pardon. But you know the whelp?”

  “I know Piers de Veragny.”

  “He is my bitterest enemy, demoiselle. It is often so with brothers born out of wedlock. My seneschal spoke wildly; the chagrin of a jealous lover. I will not trouble you to deny his other charges. But you must see it is folly to risk your good name in friendship with a landless bastard who can never support a wife?”

  “My lord, he saved my life. It would be gross ingratitude to dismiss him,” she said firmly. The cripple might wish her well, but too much of the secret had come out for anything but an open breach to be possible or even safe.

  “And have I no claim on your gratitude? Why, I have already found you a husband, and planned to dower you for the fondness I had for you!”

  “Marry that! ” exclaimed Rodriga in revulsion. She steadied herself. “My lord, I thank you, but Piers is my friend, and I cannot dismiss him at your bidding!”

  “You betray my kindness, cast all I have offered in my teeth? Almost I believe the rest, that you consort also with that renegade Saracen’s spawn!” His working face was suffused with dark blood, his dull eyes injected with crimson. “You and your besotted father will rue this!” he choked. “Your base ingratitude will cost you more than you dream of!”

  He hobbled to the passage, and Rodriga fled to tell her father, who nodded soberly. “If that man Marco is still in my house, fetch him at once!” he bade Ramiro urgently. “Spilt truth is like spilt blood; it is not to be gathered up again,” he said grimly. “No matter for regret; we are well rid of that false friendship. Heart up, lass! He has not found cause to slit all our throats! All he knows is that we are over-friendly with his enemies. Ah, Marco! I feared you had slipped discreetly away.”

  “I meant to leave just before sunset, unless I can be of further service,” the renegade answered formally.

  “You can,” Landry told him bluntly. “Is it necessary that you leave today?”

  “It is no matter when I go. I intended to fetch my camel from Tyre.”

  “You know what happened?”

  “I heard most of it,” he admitted. “I prefer to know what my enemies are about.”

  “Thought so. Would not otherwise have kept your carcase intact so long.” He savagely thumped an unresisting cushion until the dust flew. “Here I lie like a woman in childbed for this miserable pinprick in my leg, and how are we to learn what mischief that cur is devising until the point is at our necks? Yours is not the only knife in Acre to be hired!”

  Rodriga started and then glared ferociously at her distracted parent, who seemed, after the most tactless utterance of an outspoken lifetime, oblivious of having said anything amiss. She risked an apologetic glance at Marco, and found neither wrath nor shame but a gleam of wicked relish in his bright black eyes.

  “I cannot answer for his own troop of cut-throats,” the renegade assured Landry blandly, “but I doubt he will find a ribald in Acre eager to earn his price.”

  “Why not?”

  “My word carries more weight than his, and I spoke it after I had pledged myself to your daughter’s service.”

  “What counter did you make?” Rodriga asked expectantly.

  “A promise that whoever molested you or the young squire would have neither gullet nor guts left him before he could spend a denier of the reward on wine to fill them, my lady.”

  “Very appropriate!” Landry said, with a snort of laughter, and eyed Marco somewhat grimly. “And what reward do you seek for the trouble you have taken in my daughter’s service?”

  “My lady’s service is its own reward.”

  “An honest answer, if you please!”

  “It was,” Marco assured him, a devil’s mirth in his grin. “In all my life I never shared in so entertaining an enterprise. Moreover it may have escaped your memory that your lame scorpion planned my death, and what purer satisfaction can a man find than to thwart his enemy’s designs?”

  “Gratitude, vengeance, and the rest sheer devilment, you unprincipled scoundrel?”

  Marco laughed softly, and the two men regarded each other in mutual appreciation. Rodriga saw that the hard and secret renegade and her open, genial father had recognised some subtle kinship, and all uneasiness left her. She need not fear that her father’s incurable bluntness would ever offend Marco. His sense of humour could withstand the truth, and truth as Landry dealt it required an uncommonly robust structure to withstand its bludgeoning. He came a little closer, and asked briskly, “What would you have me do?”

  “That lame scorpion left us uttering threats. Can you discover whether they were mere wind, or what we need to guard against?”

  “If he tries to hire ribalds, I can learn of it. But from what I have seen of his men, he has talent enough under his hand.” He caught Rodriga’s eye, and added, “He values Christian Acre’s good opinion too highly to use it if there is any risk of detection, my lady.”

  “
Then you will learn what you can, Marco? And in God’s Name guard yourself! He is hot against you, and if I did right I should bid you quit Acre tonight. Though without hope of being heeded.”

  “To pacify your conscience?” Marco suggested.

  “Conscience—bid any man turn his back like a craven? I owed you fair warning.”

  “His word does not run in the ribalds’ rat-holes,” Marco assured him, and caught Rodriga’s eye as he went out. She followed him, down to the courtyard and out to the pool where she had talked with a very different scoundrel. Sunset flared in the sky, and the high walls cast long shadows that filled the court with foreknowledge of night’s darkness.

  “My lady, while your father is bedfast I reckon there is little danger,” he said bluntly, “but once he is afoot to stir the cauldron he will brew trouble. Shall I kill this scorpion for you?”

  “Kill him? Mother of God, no!” she gasped, appalled.

  “He endangers you. He would murder the squire he has wronged. He is vermin that should be trodden on,” he said, grimly logical.

  She thrust hideous temptation out of her mind. “You must not! A cripple—no, Marco! You cannot take his blood on your hands— stoop to his evil!”

  “To my thinking it is sound prudence to kill a man who would kill you,” he said curtly.

  She had no skill in dispute, and hunted desperately for some argument that would counter his terrifyingly reasonable proposal. “It cannot be—not that way! We seek justice! Justice must be proved and answered before his peers, not by killing in private quarrel! Marco, I cannot let you take black guilt on your soul for me!”

  “Guilt on my soul!” he repeated incredulously. “What is one killing more to the tally?”

  “Not that way! Coldly, by plan, a cripple who cannot defend himself!”

  “An adder can still slay with its back broken,” he said meditatively, “and it is safer—”

  “This is Christian law, not safety! Marco, we must win by process of law, justice proved in the King’s Court before all men, not by murder! I cannot let you send him to Hell unrepentant, all his sins on his soul and yours!”

  “I see that I should have done it first and consulted you afterwards,” he said, rueful humour in his smile.

  She looked at his dark grave face, and suddenly her horror left her. “No,” she said in flat conviction. “However many men you have killed, I know you have never done murder.”

  His eyes widened, and there was a moment’s startled silence. At last he shrugged. “I might have tried. But I see it is not in you to countenance it, and I will not go against your will. Whether we have cause to regret it or not, my lady, he shall have justice according to your law.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  A burning day dragged out its uneasy length without word or sign either from Marco or Robert de Veragny. Rodriga saw to it that an armed Catalan served as porter instead of the one-handed Wulfric, and that no one left the house alone, but those were the only precautions she could take, and they failed to satisfy her. Pablo’s hurts were almost mended, but even so they were very few. Landry was recovering, but at his age a severe illness was not to be forgotten in a few days. Helga tried earnestly to please, but she proved irritatingly stupid and ignorant, and to Rodriga, beset by worries, it seemed the final exasperation to be obliged to explain every order several times and then stand over the girl to see that it was carried out.

  Landry fretted eloquently. “Here I am laid by the heels for a week at least! Surely in all Acre we should find a man who lived near Rionart nineteen years ago? I have quartered the camp with my nose down until I can smell a Poitevin, and resurrected moth-eaten scandals until my head buzzes, and the only time I get within arm’s reach of a witness he is worms’ meat in the cemetery!”

  “A priest is our best hope,” said Rodriga decisively. “And I cannot pursue elderly Poitevins inconspicuously through the city. It must wait until you are well again.”

  Landry grabbed at a sliding cushion and thrust it more securely under his head. “Then there is Marco. I cannot feel easy about him.” “He has given us aid and service beyond measure!” she protested. “That is what I mean, lass. He has joined our enterprise, and I shall be sorry if he finds his death in it. If he were murdered, or perjured to the gallows, the righteous of Acre would cross themselves and offer thanks to be rid of a renegade dog.”

  She had not understood that Marco was vulnerable as they were not, having reckoned only on his obvious competence in survival, but now she saw that his death would be as happily regarded as that of a rabid jackal, her father’s uneasiness was added to her own. “What can we do? He will not leave Acre for safety.”

  “Safety? That one cares nothing whatever for his own neck; see how he gambles with it! If anyone asks my opinion, he thrust his nose into our affairs for pure devilment and keeps it there for the sport of it! But that does not absolve my conscience.”

  “Inconveniently active,” Rodriga told him, and awaited the renegade’s return with mounting anxiety and an eagerness that surprised her. Shameful as it was to enjoy association with so notorious a scoundrel, the renegade’s hard sense and astringent humour made other men’s company seem flat and flavourless.

  The last red light of the sun went out, and stars pricked through the night. Diego brought in a taper to light the lamps. He had barely finished trimming the wicks when Ramiro, who had been stationed at the stable gate, brought Marco in. Landry’s frown was replaced by a grin of greeting. “ ’Save you, Marco! Sit down and take wine with us.”

  He waited only until the boy had gone before coming directly to his point. “There is very little to tell you. Robert de Veragny seems to be waiting on your move. He has not tried to hire killers among the ribalds; perhaps one failure sufficed. But he is cultivating the favour of Melek Ric, who holds him in esteem, and the fame of his devoutness is increasing throughout your host.”

  “Hypocrite!” growled Landry, and washed away the taste of it with a deep swallow of wine.

  Marco shrugged. “How do your host judge but by outward show? He spends his days on his knees before your altars, offering candles and Masses. For the liberation of Jerusalem, men say, and account it righteousness. How shall they guess what he prays in his heart?”

  “And who will believe him guilty of wrong without incontrovertible proof?” demanded Landry, impatiently smiting his knee.

  “From witnesses of unsullied repute,” agreed Marco with a wry smile. “One thing I overheard may have more meaning to you than to me. One priest, not knowing I understood Norman French, praised his zeal to another, who answered that for all his fervour he had never been known to make his confession1 and receive Communion.” He lifted an inquiring eyebrow.

  “It means a deal,” Landry answered soberly, and Rodriga nodded. Robert dared not confess; no priest would grant him absolution unless he made restitution to the man he had wronged. Robert would never yield up Rionart and its profits from his son’s inheritance, and could only retain them by slaying their rightful owner. It meant that for his son’s gain he imperilled his immortal soul, but most men see death as a distant inevitability, not an immediate one. Robert must depend on securing himself in Rionart by procuring Piers’s murder, and making his peace with God at leisure. It was not an uncommon way of thought for a sinner, and remembering histories of frantic sickbed repentances, she thought that for a determined murderer Robert’s conscience must be astonishingly tender to hold him any time before an altar on his knees. Sinners seldom gave thought to their immortal souls until they felt Hell’s flames singeing them.

  She looked at Marco, wondering irrelevantly whether he were as ignorant as he professed to be of the Christian doctrine and practice he openly despised. No, not that; his contempt was for those Christians who signally failed to follow its precepts. “Is there anything more?” she asked.

  “I have passed the word that I will always welcome news of his actions, and his seneschal’s.” He set down his cup and rose to his feet
. “I am for Tyre,” he announced.

  “Not so fast! You will sup with us; I have a proposal to put to you.”

  “Of what kind?” he inquired warily, faint distaste in his voice.

  “Not to kill anyone, even Robert de Veragny!” Landry retorted. He lay considering the renegade, slender and trim in his plain dark clothes, for a long moment, and then nodded. Rodriga wondered what was in his mind to set that odd expression, compounded of resolution and sympathy, on his face, but when it came even she who knew him was astounded. “Will you join my household?” he asked bluntly.

  Apart from the startled widening of his eyes, Marco stood as still as if frozen. Even his breathing seemed to have halted; he was a stone statue. Then, “In what capacity?” he inquired, in the same flat voice of distaste, and his eyes narrowed to their usual look of wolfish watchfulness.

  “Whatever pleases you best. Oh, you need not tell me you have never served any man—”

  “Wrong. I did once. A mistake which resolved me, when I won free, never again to put my neck under a yoke,” Marco said wryly. “Why should you want me in your household?”

  “Two reasons. First, you have chosen to join our venture, and as matters now stand I should prefer to have you at hand.” He paused briefly, and Marco nodded. “And for the second, you have made a dangerous enemy in our service, and most of Acre would praise him for a public benefactor if he contrived to kill you. I shall feel happier to have you under my roof—as my guest, no more.” Marco’s hands clenched sharply. He was as pale as his swarthy skin permitted, rigid as a wooden image, his eyes incredulous. It seemed a long time before he answered, and then his voice was unnaturally, harshly steady. “You offer me your protection?”

  “We have lived under your protection these last weeks, have we not?” Landry asked, smiling with sudden warmth.

  “It would not be well regarded by your people or your King,” Marco declared flatly.

  “Lord Above, do you reckon I order my life by other men’s opinions?” snorted Landry.