All day he scanned the shimmering horizon. Late in the afternoon, a white cloud rose toward the brazen sky. Many camels…fast camels—Saladin’s camel, and Satan take all truces!
As the sun set, the iron men of Kerak rode down the steep hill. De Courtenai now wore his cross hiked sword, and the visor of his flat-topped helmet masked his face. He rode beside Raynald, and behind them came all the other wolves of Kerak; fierce Franks and lean Arab nomads who plundered all men alike.
Neither drum nor trumpet sounded. These men knew the desert and its warfare. They were intent on surprising the camp whose fires were a small winking red in the distance. There was only the muted voice of armor and curb chains muffled to avoid any betraying clank. And later, a muttered command passed down the column.
The nomad free lances swung from the troop. De Courtenai’s heart hammered beneath his hauberk; hammered as it never had since his first battle. Time dragged as he pictured the nomads making a vast circle, looping back to the caravan’s further flank—
Time unending…and then he heard it, a far off yell, the rush of camels’ padding feet, the drumming hoofs of desert horses. He lowered his lance, leaned forward in the saddle.
“Hold it, fool!” yelled Raynald. “Wait till they’re sure the nomads are running—wait—”
But de Courtenai’s beast stretched long legs. Devil take strategy! The caravan guards were already in triumphant pursuit of the nomads. The camel train would not race into the darkness with its precious cargo.
He charged into the glare of waving torches, riding down the Negro footmen. Arrows rattled against his armor. A platoon of horse, about to take up the pursuit of the nomads, wheeled about at the howling. Scimitars whirling, marl agleam in the light of a blazing tent, they swooped into the oasis.
De Courtenai’s lance cleared a saddle. Another—and splintered as it swept a Kurdish horseman to the sand. He pivoted, and his sword flailed into the pack that enclosed him. A blade licked up from the ground. His horse lurched hamstrung.
But the yell of triumph was drowned by the rumble of hooves from the rear. Women screamed. Fallen torches set other tents aflame. Grooms galloped frantically across the desert. The wolves of Kerak had arrived.
They swept the camp clear, reformed and met the main guard that came from its phantom chase across the sand. De Courtenai, again on horse, rode through the confusion to join in the last stroke of destruction. But as he passed a broad silken pavilion, a squad of Turkish guards charged out. In their center was a veiled woman, and beside her was one whose red hair trailed like a banner in the leaping flames: Sitti Zayda, and Elinor.
El Adel’s mamluks, whom no alarm could draw from their loyal mistress! De Courtenai spurred his beast athwart their path. Scimitars danced against his shoulders, hammered his casque. Lances tore into his hauberk, and blades licked at his maddened horse. But he stood in the stirrups, wedged in the heart of the pack. Sword gripped in both hands, he whirled it, and the chaff from his mill was red. Then the rear guard troop from Kerak poured in. De Courtenai’s dripping blade waved them away from the captives. Elinor slipped from her horse and to his saddle bow. One arm steadied her; his other hand seized the veiled woman before she could bolt.
It was all over except for guards beyond the fire glow, fighting back to back until thirsty blades cut them down. And that had scarcely ended when Raynald returned from his red work at the further fringe of the oasis.
He reined in, eyed Elinor’s white loveliness, and boomed, “God’s blood, de Courtenai! I don’t blame you. But I’ve found something sweeter!”
He leaned over in the saddle, reached for the Saracen girl’s gold embroidered veil. De Courtenai’s protest was too late. The frail fabric yielded, and her cape came with it in Raynald’s great paw. Bare faced and bare headed; lustrous black hair all agleam with great rubies; pearls shimmered against her olive tinted throat, and a pearl pendant nestled in the hollow of her breast.
In the eyes of a Moslem, this was exposure shameful as the nudity of the slave market.
“My lord the wolf.” Zayda’s voice trembled with fury, and the glow of cheek and breast was more than the fire’s reflection. “Saladin’s own hand will cut that arm from your body.”
The Lord of Kerak laughed gustily. “Let him seek me, any day.”
“Sieur de Chatillon,” interposed de Courtenai, impressed by the girl’s proud bearing, “it’s not her fault, your thirteen years’ captivity.”
Elinor caught Raynald’s arm. “As a favor, let her be veiled.”
Raynald shrugged, gestured to the trumpeter. Recall rang above the dying crackle of the flames, and soon the wolves of Kerak were marching across the desert with their loot.
Elinor refused a horse. Arms twined about de Courtenai’s blood splashed neck, bare shoulder leaning against his slashed hauberk, she whispered, “Take off your helmet. So I can see you. Every minute, as long as I can. It’s so wonderful—I can’t believe it—I heard in Cairo that father escaped—”
He doffed his battered casque, drew her toward him till she gasped from his fierce embrace. Then in the moonlight he saw that her eyes were tear-gleaming, and sorrowful as her face.
“I’ll send a message to your father. He won’t worry long—”
“It’s not that,” she explained, “this raid will mean war. It’s my fault—”
“A dozen wars!” he laughed. “This is worth them.”
“No. It’s the end for the Crusader’s power. The holy fire has left them. In Cairo I heard that. Saladin is uniting all the infidel tribes who used to fight each other instead of us. The King of Jerusalem is an oaf. Count Raymond of Tripoli is more Saracen than Christian. We’ll be swept into the sea—”
“We’ll go back to France, you and I!” He kissed the qualms from her red mouth, but not the fear from his own heart. Elinor was right. Not this year, or next, but in the end. Islam had become a consuming flame.
The rising moon welcomed the wolves to Kerak. Sieur Raynald ushered Elinor and Sitti Zayda to apartments in an isolated turret in the great black castle. He relished his vengeance and said, “Lady Elinor, I give you a king’s sister to dress your hair!”
But the smoldering eyes of the Saracenic princess did not brighten. She knew the lord of Kerak and his undying hatred for her race.
“Rest while we drink,” was de Courtenai’s final word at the massive door. “Vengeance is sleep for Sieur Raynald. But you won’t hear the splash of wine up there in the turret.”
“Try and break away,” whispered Elinor.
“You’d better bolt the door,” he warned, knowing that she would not.
Down in the somber acre of dining room, Sieur Raynald and his wolves feasted and drank. Circassian girls from the caravan poured their wine. Flickering torchlight kissed their unveiled beauty, brought fire from their gilded hair. Syrian slaves with languorous black eyes sang to the music of pearl inlaid rebeks.
“Bring out that wine from Samos!” roared Raynald, pounding his flagon against the board. “Out of the deepest cellar! What we can’t drink now, time will lap up! Dry dusty time—time that makes old men of me and Saladin—puts a white beard on my vengeance—”
“You’ve brought him out of his hole, Sieur Raynald!” boomed hook nosed Guilford, and others shouted, “Here’s your war, Father of Wolves!”
So they drank and planned. War it must be, for they had seized a caravan that their overlord, the King of Jerusalem, had given protection.
But de Courtenai’s thoughts were in the far off turret… He watched the dancing girls from Hindustan, part of the royal loot. Their breasts were masked by hemispheres of gold, and their writhing stomachs were pale gold in the torch glow. The jeweled pendants of their broad girdles winked with the sensuous sway of their hips, and their black eyes seconded the passionate voice of the sitars.
When the table was cleared, half the wolves of Ker
ak were beneath it. Wine blazed in their eyes and dripped from the beards of those who were still in their chairs. They pounded their flagons as the nautch girls from El Adel’s train swayed down the length of the table. Their slim legs twinkled, smiled through the frail scarlet skirts that swirled with their turning, rising hip-high, settling faster than the eye could follow.
The planning for war was over. The Syrian slaves left their corners, joined the girls from Hindustan. Their lips were ready for any master. Sieur Raynald slapped de Courtenai on the shoulder, nearly knocking him from his chair. “Go to the turret! Pardieu! She’s waiting for you!”
He welcomed his dismissal, and laughed as Sieur Raynald reached for the nautch girl de Courtenai had thrust aside. As he stalked through the halls, he regretted a frayed doublet and patched cape, the last of his once rich wardrobe.
She was waiting, eyes aglow—until they misted from his kiss. He carried her to the massive bench set into the turret’s overhanging gallery. The poison sweetness of oriental perfumes no longer tainted her outlandish borrowed garb. In the shadows, all he could see was whiteness that reminded him of home and far off France.
He had kissed many women in many a mad Syrian night. But Elinor was a wonder that made him feel awkward and unworthy. To have her beside him was enough. Or so the thought was in his wine dizzied brain, until her nearness inflamed him, and she whispered, “Don’t ever leave me! Love me as long as you can—there’s war tomorrow—I’ll be in Tiberias, waiting—”
And that was heady logic…
“I don’t care why you left France…whose husband you killed,” she murmured finally. “Father will let me marry you. After last night—”
But a cry cut into their kisses; low, wrathful, like the scream of a panther. It was Saladin’s high spirited sister. “Dog and father of many dogs—”
Glass spattered. Cloth ripped. A triumphant laugh raised bellowing echoes. Sieur Raynald was seeking vengeance. De Courtenai leaped to his feet. Elinor followed, seeking a taper from a far alcove.
Zayda it was, and Sieur Raynald’s powerful hands were more than full. Her gown hung in shreds to her slim waist, but her hennaed nails were raking his face.
“My lord,” shouted de Courtenai, seizing Raynald by the shoulder, “you’re drunk—this isn’t man’s vengeance—”
The wolf of Kerak whirled, flung Zayda asprawl. He was weaving on his feet, yet cat-quick for all of that. De Courtenai flung up an empty hand to strike aside Sieur Raynald’s dagger slash.
“Stop!” screamed Elinor. “She was good to me—as she could be—”
Sieur Raynald lunged, raging.
Zayda scrambled to her feet. “Saladin’s own hands will cut the arms from you!” But Elinor settled it as de Courtenai grappled with his wrath crazed chief. She smote him over the head with a candlestick, and he dropped.
“By God!” panted de Courtenai. “He’s dead—”
The three eyed one another.
But Raynald was too drunk to be killed easily. He grunted, came to his knees, well sobered. “Maybe you’re right, de Courtenai,” he said thickly. “Take her away. Take them both to Tiberias. If that heathen wench is untouched, we can bargain with Saladin. Win time for that thin blooded King of Jerusalem to collect his wits and prepare for war.”
He reeled, blinked. “Tonight, de Courtenai. Before the news spreads and the marches are thick with Saladin’s men.”
“But you, Sieur Raynald?”
“I stay to hold Kerak. Until those fools on the coast need me!”
* * * *
So that dawn, de Courtenai and a fairly sober squad of the wolf’s pack set out for the black gorge of the Dead Sea.
As he rode, de Courtenai said to his men, “This infidel girl is Lady Elinor’s maid. The first man who noises it about Jerusalem that she is Saladin’s sister gets his skull split to the chin!”
And the wolves knew their captain.
Sitti Zayda said to him, “Why do you do this for me, ya emir?”
“For her sake, King’s Sister,” he answered in Arabic. “Because of you, not her, the wolf of Kerak made his raid. You were her fortune.”
“Allah does what he will do!” Zayda answered, shrugging her cape closer about her. “It was written.”
And de Courtenai began to know why the holy fire of the crusades had dimmed. For a century, between battles, the invading Franks had rubbed elbows with the Moslem. They could no longer as fervently hate these people who accepted any turn of fortune as the unquestioned will of the One True God. The Crusader was no longer certain as he once had been; like himself, the Moslem revered Christ as a prophet.
King Guy of Jerusalem blustered and trembled when, days later, he received de Courtenai’s report. The grim Templars brightened. Their Grand Master, iron hearted Gerard de Rideford, caressed his sword. But swarthy Count Raymond of Tripoli pulled his sharp face into sombre angles.
“This is not well, de Courtenai. We had two more years of truce. Two more years to prepare against Saladin’s growing power. And with diplomacy—”
“Christ’s blood!” growled the wolf’s cub. “Were diplomats sent to hold Kerak? Sharpen sword, monsieur le compte! We’ve got—”
But he checked himself before he blurted out that Saladin’s sister was a hostage. He could not betray that high spirited girl to this lukewarm pack; each night on the long march with Elinor had made him more grateful to Zayda. His Moslem disguise had been more than skin deep; Arab-like, he felt that Zayda was part of Elinor’s kismet.
“We’ve got,” he resumed, “the advantage of assembling before Saladin gets the news.”
As he turned on his heel, Count Raymond detained him. “Raynald should be hanged by the heels, the hot-headed fool! But take a message to my wife in Tiberias. If you will be so good, monsieur.”
“At your pleasure, Sieur Raymond.”
“King Guy’s council,” said the Count of Tripoli, “has appointed Nablus as the rallying point. Tell her to send messengers north from Tiberias to Tripoli. And to Antioch.”
At dawn, de Courtenai’s party left Jerusalem.
“I’m afraid,” shuddered Elinor. “God can’t bless our love. It’s causing war—fresh war, when there could have been two years’ peace—”
“But war in the end, just the same,” de Courtenai finished.
“There is no God but Allah,” murmured the veiled maid-servant who rode the ambling jenny. “He does what he will do, and may he give my brother the right arm of Raynald!”
* * * *
When de Courtenai left the banks of the Jordan to skirt the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, he overtook villagers heading northward. Dust rose as far as he could see the road, and dust clouds trailed down the vine clad slopes, cut the dark green of olive groves, the ripe gold of wheat in the flatlands. The country was alive, and each beast of burden was heaped mountain high; not with farm produce, but with household goods.
The countryside was heading for Tiberias, and de Courtenai could taste fear in the very air. “Oh Uncle,” he shouted to a grizzled Syrian bent double with the burden he carried, “what festival brings you from the hills?”
“Saladin has come to harvest!” moaned the woman at his side, stumbling from the naked children that ran at her heels. “The Turks come down from Damascus—last night we saw the flames of villages—”
They were on their way to Tiberias and the shelter of its walls. De Courtenai cursed, gestured at the gray towers and walls of the city and the blue of the sea behind, where it bowed out to Mejdel. He had lost too much time. Some survivor of the caravan had ridden north. Saladin must have received the news in Damascus!
They ploughed on through the stream of peasants that blocked the road. They were caught by the vortex that poured into the gates of Tiberias that evening. The walls were manned, and knights with fresh crosses sewed to their surcoats spurred a
bout, directing the men at arms who carried rocks and oil and sheaves of arrows to the parapets. It was stale news that de Courtenai brought to Eschiva, Count Raymond’s wife and chatelaine of Tiberias.
“Madame,” said de Courtenai when the countess received him in a hall all astir with her clanking captains, “I bring you greetings from monsieur le compte. But instead of giving you his message, I will take your news to him.”
The blonde chatelaine thanked him, called for food and wine for his weary party. Then she said to Elinor, “Your father reached Tiberias, but his wounds are—”
She checked herself.
“Tell me!” Elinor’s nails dug into her palms.
“He died praying for your safety.” Eschiva drew the white-faced girl to her side. “But you are welcome—to whatever war leaves us.”
Elinor swallowed a sob, smiled bravely. She caught de Courtenai’s hand and said, “It has brought me Jehan, madame. It will leave me with him. And this pagan girl who was kind to me during my captivity.”
Eschiva’s weary eyes brightened. “Sieur de Courtenai, the priests will soon be too busy with the dying. But there will be time for them to do a happier duty.”
Elinor turned from the chatelaine’s arm.
“Jehan,” she said, “I’m so very much alone—and if you can love me, after the ruin I’ve caused—”
His kiss cut short her words of self-reproach. Then he turned to bow to the countess. “Madame, where is this priest?”
The countess laughed softly. “De Courtenai, give this poor girl a chance to get over that long march! And you’re dying on your feet. Tomorrow—forgive me, but these officers are enough to drive one woman crazy!”
She turned to the captains who came to report. A steward ushered the travelers to their quarters. The countess was right. De Courtenai was perishing of weariness; but his last thought was that with a night’s rest, he could handle Saladin and all his armies…
E. Hoffmann Price's Exotic Adventures Page 12
