Pearl Beyond Price

by Claire Delacroix

  “Are you Thierry de Pereille?” he demanded in a terse undertone.

  Thierry nearly missed a parry, so astonished was he by the question.

  “Aye,” he agreed warily before he could think to do otherwise.

  “Fool,” the man declared again, his green eyes snapping fire as he dealt a telling blow to another guard. “Though I guessed as much when I heard Mongols came calling. I expected your sire to raise you with more sense than this.” He grunted and jabbed his sword into the gullet of an attacker. “Is it his error or are you the witless one?”

  Thierry struggled to make sense of the enigmatic words even as he fought.

  How could this stranger know his name?

  And how did he know Thierry’s father?

  “And who might you be?” Thierry dared to ask, earning himself a sharp glare from the older knight.

  “Eustache de Sidon,” the man replied. “Were it not for the pledge I took to your father, ’twould be your blood on the floor and deservedly so. Never have I witnessed such brash foolhardiness—”

  A roar erupted from the end of the hall as a large contingent of the king’s guards spilled into the throne room. The older man beside Thierry muttered something under his breath that sounded typical of Nogai.

  He shot Thierry a scathing glance. “Get out, now,” he commanded.

  Thierry bristled at the order. “I will not flee like a woman.”

  The other man snorted. “Nay, you will flee like a hunted man,” he corrected. “As will all the rest of us now, I wager.” He swore eloquently and visibly gritted his teeth, his voice dropping to a growl. “Indeed, I should have trusted the sign more. Had I but known, I would have brought them all.” His gaze flitted over the walls of the throne room and he shook his head. “Such an opportunity wasted,” he muttered, to Thierry’s confusion, then spared the younger man a knowing look. “We could have regained the prize this very day.”

  Before Thierry could demand an explanation, the older knight turned and bellowed once more. He raised his blade high as he faced the attackers.

  “To the doors, I bid you!” he shouted to his men. They turned of one accord to meet the new arrivals, a collective roar erupting from their throats. A group of them closed ranks behind Thierry, Nogai and Kira, and the group moved toward the door in a tight cluster.

  “Of what does he speak?” Kira demanded.

  Thierry guessed that Eustache’s flow of recriminations had been too quick for her. He shrugged as they were swept forward with the crowd of knights.

  “He knows my father.”

  “And so he aids us,” she concluded with a nod of satisfaction. Thierry was not certain he was so pleased. “He understands their dismay?” she asked and Thierry shrugged again.

  “Perhaps.”

  Kira tripped then, bumped from behind in the rush to the doors, and he feared that she would be trampled. He scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder, not missing the welcome flash of her grin.

  “Questions later,” she advised in a whisper, and Thierry almost smiled. He but gave her knees a squeeze before one of the king’s guards broke through the ranks. Thierry swung his blade with vigor and repelled his assailant, holding fast to her legs.

  He could only hope they had the opportunity for questions.

  Chapter 13

  The army of knights drove through the contingent of guards like a finely honed wedge. Thierry found himself, Kira and Nogai packed into the center of the group so tightly that he had not even the space to swing his own blade. Nogai’s alarm was evident, for his nostrils flared in agitation.

  They gained the hall, then the staircase, the group of men pressing relentlessly on despite the cries of those who rose against them. Thierry felt a waft of outside air with relief, then he exhaled when they passed into the courtyard. He was not certain how many of the king’s men fell and how many were injured. There seemed to be more confusion than shed blood.

  How would they find their horses? Their escape was doomed!

  Thierry immediately spied their distinctively shorter ponies saddled before him. How had this happened?

  Thierry spared a glance at Eustache, who grimaced and waved to his beasts.

  “We are hunted,” he growled. “Have I not made the matter most clear? Hasten yourself, boy, or I shall truly begin to question whether you might be your father’s son. He was a man of sense, most of the time.”

  Nogai had already mounted and Kira was in Thierry’s saddle a heartbeat later.

  “I found only seven ponies like this, milord,” a young boy informed Thierry solemnly.

  “We have seven,” he confirmed and swung up behind Kira.

  “And fine creatures they be, milord.” The boy bobbed a bow. “Fine thick coats have they and it seems they must be well suited to travel—”

  “Beauregard!” Eustache bellowed from atop his own charger, and the boy winced. “I bade you be mounted when we arrived!” The boy’s eyes widened in a manner that left no doubt as to his identity and he scurried toward a smaller palfrey.

  “Aye, milord, but I had to confirm we had found all the foreign beasts,” he explained hastily.

  “I have no care for your excuses!” the man shouted, scooping up the boy with more care than his tone might have led one to expect. “I bade you find the Mongol’s beasts—surely seven is plenty, even if ’tis not all. They will not injure the horses. ’Tis the man they seek.” He dropped the boy into the saddle before him and gave the riderless palfrey a hearty swat across the rump.

  “Hasten yourselves!” he roared once more.

  Thierry dug his heels into his beast’s side and whistled, sending the others running along with them. The troop of knights were clearing the gates when shouts rang out from the fortress behind. Thierry’s heart nearly stopped when he saw the market carts and old farm horses cluttering the street, knowing with certainty that the king’s troops would be upon them before they reached the city walls.

  To his astonishment the townsfolk seemed well accustomed to this sort of interruption, for a bellow from Eustache sent them hurrying out of the way. The cry was taken up by the others. Nogai winked at Thierry before he lent his voice to the fray. At least someone enjoyed their flight. The horses were given their lead and the cobblestones echoed with the thunder of their passing.

  “Surely they will pursue us?” Thierry said to Eustache. The older knight shot him an indulgent glance and ruffled the hair of the boy seated before him.

  “Beauregard has a way with knots and harnesses that may delay their departure,” he confided. The boy grinned proudly at his master’s praise. “But aye, they will. We must plan for that eventuality.” He gave Thierry a hot look. “Later.”

  Thierry donned his own helmet and pulled Kira resolutely closer.

  When they passed beneath the walls of the city without intervention, the knights hollered victoriously. Thierry released the breath he had not known he was holding and deliberately loosed his grip on Kira’s waist.

  Kira smiled up at him as she slipped his knife back into his scabbard. She curled closer to him and pulled his cloak about her against the late-afternoon air. She looked thoughtful.

  “What do you know of your mark?” she asked in a whisper.

  “’Tis a birthmark, like any other.”

  “Not like any other,” she chided. “Men do not attack men over their birthmarks.”

  “My father has one the same,” he admitted and she straightened with interest.

  “Precisely the same?”

  “Aye.”

  She shook her head. “But that is impossible.”

  “Yet true all the same.” Thierry brushed his lips across her brow, his gaze seeking out Eustache in the throng of knights. “We shall talk later,” he murmured into her hair.

  She twisted in front of him to look at Eustache. “He knows,” she said with conviction. “He must, for he knew you would need his aid.”

  Thierry had to admit that seemed likely.

 
; She looked up at him and her tone turned fierce. “You must ask him for all of the truth. You must know why they would see you dead.”

  “Aye,” Thierry agreed, wondering whether Eustache would tell him. He had to discover what had happened in the king’s throne room, but also he would know how this knight had known his name.

  It seemed the older man avoided his gaze as they rode, but Thierry was determined to learn the truth when they halted, whenever and wherever that might be.

  Kira did not like that Thierry had been assaulted before the king. She liked even less that he did not know why. The khan’s message to the king had not been insulting, at least not what she had understood of it, and she had believed that there was interest in the proposal from the king and his men.

  At least until Thierry showed his mark.

  He had told her that the Mongols were superstitious and she guessed that the khan believed Thierry’s birth mark proved that he approached the king in good faith. He bore the mark of their faith on his skin, after all. If they were similarly superstitious, the mark should have reassured them—not prompted an attack.

  Why did it matter so?

  How had it made Thierry appear to be a threat to the king?

  That was no good change. Kira watched behind the party for signs of pursuit, certain there would be some. Any king who wanted a man dead did not abandon the chase.

  Who was Eustache? Even if he knew the import of such a birth mark—which he must have done, to have led his warriors to the hall to defend them—how had he guessed that Thierry possessed one? Thierry had never mentioned his father until this day, when he had admitted that Eustache knew that man. Was his father in these lands?

  Kira had a multitude of questions and suspected Eustache knew many of the answers. She was impatient to learn more, yet knew they had to escape first.

  They rode hard until they left the city walls behind and Kira noticed only then that they took an unfamiliar road. ’Twas not the way their small party had arrived in Paris. The sun was yet behind them, so their course must be to the north. Thierry was tense, whistling to the ponies as Nogai did, keeping their herd together. All the while, he slanted glances at the large destrier ridden by Eustache.

  Kira was glad when Eustache came to ride beside them and slowed his steed slightly. “They will be fast behind us,” the older man said, his manner terse. “What prompted you to such folly?”

  “What folly?” Thierry asked and Kira saw the surprise in Eustache’s eyes.

  “Do you not know the meaning of your mark?” The older knight’s tone was harsh and the boy in the saddle before him—Beauregard—listened to the conversation with wide eyes.

  Thierry shook his head and Eustache swore. Though Kira did not know the words, his reaction was most clear. “You have shown the king that you have a claim to his throne,” he finally said, biting off the words. “And this is the same king who besieged your father’s holding, compelling him to leave his homeland.”

  Thierry caught his breath and Kira knew he had not been aware of these details.

  “Like Abaqa,” he said, then spoke quickly to Nogai who rode on his other side. Nogai’s eyes brightened with an understanding Kira did not share.

  Then she remembered. “You were one of the ba’tar, the blooded ones.”

  He nodded, and she saw his surprise that she knew of this.

  “The Persian woman told me.”

  “And all of the ba’tar have a blood claim to be khan. Mine is strong, which is why Abaqa sent me on this errand.”

  Kira understood that the khan had not expected Thierry to return. She wondered if Abaqa had known the meaning of Thierry’s mark, but Eustache continued. ’Twas no consolation to know that Thierry was hunted by the khan and also by this king.

  “There is but one solution, and the king will not rest until it has occurred,” Eustache continued, his tone grim.

  “Tribute?” Kira suggested, knowing that the Mongols changed their ambitions for offerings of coin.

  Eustache shook his head. “There is not sufficient coin in all of Christendom for this king to tolerate the survival of a man who could claim his crown. Nay, Qaraq-Böke must die.”

  Kira caught her breath, certain that she must have misunderstood. If she had not, then Eustache was no friend.

  Eustache smiled at her alarm and continued in a low voice. “He must be seen to die, so that Thierry de Pereille can live.”

  Kira was relieved, though she still did not understand.

  “Can you swim?” Eustache asked Thierry.

  “Not well.”

  “Then I have chosen the right river.” Eustache spoke quickly, so quickly that Kira feared she missed a detail. “You are going to pull ahead, so it looks as if we pursue you and your companion. Your ponies will be noticed. There is a town just around the bend of the road there. You will ride through it at full speed and cause as much disruption as you can. I will pursue you and confront you, on the far side of the town beside the river. We will fight. I will grant you some injury, one that draws blood but will not kill you, and you will fall into the river. It must appear that you drown.”

  “There will be no blood, though.”

  Beauregard indicated a wineskin from the provisions hanging on Eustache’s saddle and the older man smiled. He handed it to Thierry. “Put it beneath your belt on your left side, where I can see it. When you are in the river, abandon it.”

  Kira saw Thierry lick his lips and nod. “What of Kira?”

  “Leave your cloak with her. She can disappear into my company. I will ensure that she is garbed as a Frankish woman. We have two whores following our company. No one will notice if there are suddenly three.”

  Kira inhaled sharply and Thierry pulled her closer. She saw that his jaw had set.

  Eustache raised a hand. “No one will touch her. I give you my word. She will hide in plain sight.” He pointed to Nogai. “Your companion must appear to be anguished and will challenge me. He will grant me a small injury, one sufficient to draw blood but not kill me. I will fall and he will be captured. Your woman will slip into the company during this battle.” He raised his brows. “There will be much concern and dissent. But at midnight, I will come to you. You will be beneath the third bridge downstream of the town. I will bring you clothing and a horse. You will shave your hair, wash, and dress as a knight, and you will then follow my dictate precisely, should you wish to survive.”

  “I will hide in plain sight,” Thierry whispered.

  Eustache nodded. “I would beg you to ensure that your companion understands the fullness of the plan. He will be arrested but I will negotiate his freedom. He is but an accessory and an envoy so it will be comparatively easy to gain his release. I will pledge to escort him to the port of Marseilles, which is not far from my route home.”

  “And Thierry?” Kira asked.

  Eustache smiled. “We will discuss his choices when Qaraq-Böke is dead and the king’s men return to Paris, if you agree with my scheme.”

  “Why do you do this?” Thierry asked, his suspicion justified to Kira’s view.

  Eustache’s gaze was steady. “Because I have served your father for as long as I can remember, and I serve him still. I know that Dagobert would not want his sole son to die because he had erred in ignorance.”

  Thierry nodded and the two men shook hands. “I thank you,” Thierry said.

  “Thank me when we have succeeded,” Eustache said and slowed his horse.

  Thierry spoke quickly to Nogai as Kira listened. She did not understand Mongol, but she understood Nogai, and she saw the way his eyes narrowed. When Thierry was done, Nogai nodded, then grinned. He agreed to the scheme. He shouted and slapped the rump of Thierry’s pony and the herd raced down the road, their hooves thundering.

  “Take this,” Thierry said with urgency, pressing his purse into Kira’s hands. “It is all the coin that I possess, and if this scheme fails, you will need it.”

  “Do you trust Eustache?” She had to as
k.

  “I have no choice. I remember my father speaking of him with great respect.” Thierry winced. “But I have no means of knowing if this is the same Eustache, or if his plan will truly aid us. He might be allied with the king in truth.”

  “But the king and his men would see you dead,” Kira reminded him. “We saw that.”

  “Aye, and Eustache saved us once.” Thierry was sober.” I can only hope he means to save us again.” He flicked a glance down at her. “Take the knife, too.”

  Kira nodded and unfastened the straps, hanging the scabbard from her own belt. She gripped the purse, far from satisfied with their situation. If Thierry was truly killed, what would happen to her? Where would she go? Who would aid her? There was no possibility of Nogai blending into this society, but she could not abandon him if they were left alone. Her thoughts were spinning, but there was no time for further discussion.

  “The town,” she whispered and pointed ahead.

  “The town,” Thierry agreed. “Trust Eustache, Kira, unless he proves to you that you should not.”

  “Aye.” Heart in her throat, she kissed Thierry’s cheek. “Swim well.”

  His grin flashed and she was reassured by the sight. “I will try.”

  The town was small and it was market day. In the central square, which could scarce be avoided, there were stalls aplenty, laden with goods for sale or trade. Thierry smelled fresh bread and heard the cluck of fowl for sale. He glimpsed a wagon of apples and women gossiping and heard a man shouting about something he would sell.

  Nogai took to their assignment with such glee that Thierry had little to do but ride. Nogai galloped into the square, shouting in Mongol at the top of his voice. He had pulled his dagger and waved it above his head. The townspeople halted to stare in astonishment. Nogai seized a number of cages as he passed, casting them to the ground so that their latches broke. Birds that had been captive flew free, although few went far. He guided his pony to ride directly at the plowhorse tethered to the wagon of apples, waving his sword and screaming so that the horse bolted, dragging the wagon through the square. The cart overturned and apples rolled in all directions.