"Do you envy her?"

The thin shoulders lifted under the cloak. "Would it do me any good if I did?"

"No," Aidan said.

"It hasn't gone that far," said Baldwin, "yet. But it will.

Soon, I expect." His tone was cool. He did not pity himself. "I go to Saint Lazarus* hospital sometimes, to see what 111 have to face. That's how I slipped my leash this time: I went out as if I were going there, and doubled round, and fell in with your company as it pa.s.sed David's Gate."

"In woman's dress?"

"This time. Sometimes I dress as what I am. The shroud and the clapper are wonderful for cleaving paths through crowds.

Better than being king." Baldwin's head tilted as if in reflec- tion; his eyes narrowed. "It's remarkable. Saint Lazarus- Some of the brothers there arc knights, do you know? Templars or Hospitallers, once. Now they have an order of their own.

When they ride in battle, they hardly need armor. They bare their faces, and the enemy runs away."

"Is it as bad as that?"

Baldwin's breath caught. Aidan trod a line as thin as a blade;ALAMUT 87 he stood steady on it, meeting the king's dark stare. "You aren't merciful, are you?" Baldwin said. But then: "Judge for your- self."

It had barely begun, yet. The lines of his face were still per- ceptible: the strong curved nose, the firm jaw, the mouth well modeled for both laughter and sternness. He would have been a handsome man.

His mouth twisted slightly. He swept the rest of the veil from hair still thick though the sickness had crept toward it, and held his gloved hands in front of him, considering them.

Afrer a moment he let them fall. "No; you don't want to see these." He lifted his chin. "Well?"

"Youll not put armies of infidels to flight quite yet."

"So," said Baldwin. "But I'm hardly a sight for a lady's bower. It's the idea of it, you see. Best they see a veil, and imagine a faceless horror. I'll be that soon enough."

"Never to me, my lord," Aidan said.

Baldwin regarded him for a long moment in silence. "No. It wouldn't matter to you, would it? It can't mar you. Body or spirit."

"Nor you, in spirit."

Baldwin shrugged. "I'm no saint. I've done my share of curs- ing heaven. I can feel uncommonly sony for myself, when there's no one about to slap me down. But it doesn't do any good, you see. I have to get up and go on. The kingdom insists on wanting me. The wars won't stop for any silliness of mine."

He touched his brow. "The crown is there, no matter what I do."

Aidan bowed his head, half nod, half obeisance. Baldwin yawned, childlike, as if he could not help it. He looked some- what embarra.s.sed, and somewhat angry, as any youth who is reminded that he is not quite yet a man.

"You," Aidan said to him, "will sleep. Here, lie down."

"I have a place in the camp," Baldwin began.

"You had one. Now, you have one here. I'll guard you better than I guarded the last of my charges."

Baldwin did not touch: that was trained in him from child- hood and from bitter experience. But his eyes were like hands, warm and strong. "It's done, prince. Mourn him, swear ven- geance for him, but let him go."

Aidan stopped, at gaze- "As you will?"

"As we all must."JwUth Tarr "No," Aidan said. "No. This can't be your fight. Tfou have the whole of Islam to face. Leave this one to me."

"Alone?"

"G.o.d will help me."

"Prince," Baldwin said. "I have knights, men-at-arms, ser- vants of all descriptions. If you need them . . ."

"I need only your promise that when I am done, there will be a place in your army for me."

"Always. But, prince-"

Aidan shook his head. "No. In all grat.i.tude, in all honor and respect and. G.o.d be my witness, love: no. Tfou aid me best by remaining where you are, you and your armies, a bulwark against the infidel."

"fcu are going to do something rash," Baldwin said.

Aidan grinned, wide and wicked. "Not tonight. Not for a while yet, I think. Though if we're to speak of rashness, 0 my king ..."

"I'm safe now, aren't I? And the lady didn't have to contend with a royal visitation on top of all the rest. Ill reveal myself tomorrow if you like. When it's too late for anyone to fret."

He paused. "Thibaut wouldn't mind, I don't think. He was always a good one for mischief."

"I know who put him up to it," said Aidan with a hint of a growl.

Baldwin laughed, and yawned till his jaw cracked, and let himself be put to bed.

The king was present at Thibaut's burial, plainly and som- beriy dressed, with his veil drawn over his face- No one quite dared to ask how or when he had come. A short night's sleep and an early rising had quenched most of the firebrands; his presence silenced the rest, if it failed quite to quell them.

Aidan's presence at his back set their eyes to glittering. The tale was growing still, and not slowly. Fear, much of it, and false logic. Two men dead; a stranger in their house. Sorcery, and sorcerers, and a.s.sa.s.sins.

Without the women to think of, he would not have cared.

He would prove that he was no a.s.sa.s.sin. The rest of it would come to nothing soon enough, once they had need of his sword.

The women had to face it now: a burden atop the burden of their sorrow. And there was nothing that he could do to make 89it tighter. He could not deny what was true. He could not alter what he was.

They were stoic in their endurance. But when the castle had emptied of mourners, courtiers riding away behind their silent and faceless young king, the walls themselves seemed to sigh with relief.

Margaret did not weep for her son as she had wept for her husband. She had no rears left. She sat in her solar, the night of his funeral, and stared blindly at the bit of needlework in her lap. Joanna had given up trying to make her go to bed, and dozed against her knee.

Aidan prowled, more restless even than he usually was.

When he had picked up the same casket for the third time, and fidgeted it open, and found it exactly as full of sweets as it had been twice before, Margaret said, "There is a moon tonight, if you take a fancy to fly about the castle."

He stopped short, flushing. Her smile did not console him.

He began to bow and dismiss himself.

"Don't go," she said. "Stay. I meant no rebuke."

He sat where he had been before the restlessness took him, and willed himself to be still. She perceived it; her eyes thanked him, a little wryly. He could, he admitted, see the humor in it.

After a fashion.

When he thought that he would burst, or erupt into flight as Margaret had jested, she said, "Tomorrow we return to Jerusa- lem. The next day, or the day after, one of our caravans departs for Damascus, and then for Aleppo. Joanna goes with it."

Aidan sat bolt upright. "Aleppo! Why in G.o.d's name-"

Joanna had fallen asleep, frowning a little as she dreamed.

Gently Margaret stroked her hair. The frown smoothed; Joanna sighed. "The House of Ibrahim," Margaret said, "has its center in Aleppo. As ofren as I can, I send a messenger there, with word of what pa.s.ses in the kingdom, and such news as I can gather."

"That's treason."

She was unofiended. "How? I tell no secrets that will harm my king or his kingdom. Some, pa.s.sed to the proper persons, can be of great aid to both."

"But first and foremost, to the House of Ibrahim."

"It is my House; its people arc my kin."

Aidan raked his fingers through his beard. "But to send Joanna-to send her now-"

90 Judith Tarr"Now more than ever. She needs escape from her sorrows.

Our House needs to know what has happened here. And," said Margaret, "a.s.sa.s.sins are men. In the harem of the House, under my grandmother's rule, even they might hesitate to tres- pa.s.s."

"They've done murder in front of the Qaaba itself, in their holy of holies in Mecca. They won't care whether your daugh- ter is in a harem or in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher at high noon."

"So, then. If she is not safe wherever she is, what does it matter where she goes?"

"It should matter to you!" The echoes rang into silence.

Joanna had not wakened. Margaret had not moved. Aidan made himself speak quietly, reasonably. "But, my lady. Aleppo, of all cities ... it crawls with a.s.sa.s.sins; it's their most loyal city. It's been under siege from the new sultan in Damascus, the one they call Saladin. It's rife with rebels and conspiracies.

She'll have to pa.s.s through infidel lands to get there, and sh.e.l.l be in infidel hands when she comes to it. Why not hand her over to Sinan and have done?"

Margaret left off stroking her daughter's hair and folded her hands in her lap. He could see Joanna in her then, in the careful precision with which she moved, and in the lowering of her eyes that was not meekness but altogether its opposite- "Do you think," she asked him softly, "that I intend to suffer this persecution in silence? That if I endure, he will go away, and I will have peace? No, my lord. He will know every mo- ment of this suffering which he has caused me. He hoped for an empire; he will see how that hope is rewarded, now that he has killed in its name."

"And Joanna is your lure?"

"Joanna is my falcon." She paused. "I have no right or power to command it; but I wm ask. Will you go with her?

Will you guard her?"

He comd not find words to speak. He was going to demand; to insist; to threaten if need be. And she asked. She trusted him so much. "And ... if I fail?"

"Don't fail."

He blinked like a fool. She was always out of his reckoning; he did not know why he should be surprised.

"Guard her," said Margaret. "Watch over her. Keep her alive. Begin our revenge on Sinan, by proving that he is not invincible." 91.

He pondered that. It was not enough; not enough by far.But for a beginning . . .

He nodded, sharp and swift and irrevocable. "I shall do it. I swear to you, my lady."

Ill DAMASCUS.

10.

The caravan was a world of its own, a moving, swaying, man legged city, a great slow dragon of a creature winding its w from oasis to oasis. Even in cities it kept its unity, growing < shrinking="" as="" it="" gathered="" new="" goods="" and="" sold="" the="" old,="" but="" ce="" tering="" itself="" on="" a="" single="" inn="" or="" caravanserai,="" arriving="" and="" depal="" ing="" together="" with="" its="" guards="" and="" its="" outriders="" and="" its="" master="" c="" his="" white="" camel="" at="" its="">

Joanna was a princess here, a scion of the House oflbrahi and its hidden queen; as Aidan was no more than her guan He took it well, she thought, for as proud a man as he wa Blank astonishment, at first, that these merchants should kno his rank, comprehend his purpose among them, and conclu< that="" he="" had="" not,="" yet,="" earned="" their="" respect.="" anger,="" then,="" but="" pause="" for="" which="" she="" could="" admire="" him,="" and="" in="" th?="" end,="" albt="" with="" clenched="" teeth,="">

He at least did not take issue with her refusal to ride in litter like a proper princess. She rode astride as she always ha in Arab dress certainly, and veiled, but that was only sensible the glare of the desert. It interested her how quickly Aid; shed Prankish garb for that of this country through which 1 rode- Two days out of Jerusalem, beyond holy Jordan on tl marches of Islam, he appeared in the courtyard of the carava serai in the light of dawn, in the swathings...o...b..du robes. F seemed perfectly at ease in them; for all the whiteness of F skin, his narrow hawk-face with its new beard seemed mo Arab than Frank- But it was certainly a Frank who veered away from the cam*

and sought the horse which Margaret had given him: the t; grey gelding, half Prankish, half of the Arab breed, that h; been Gcroint's. Franks and camels did not understand one a other.

She, on her own red mare, could hardly preach the virtues camelkind. As she took her place in the line, he fell in besil her. His greeting was civil but brief- She wondered if he h; slept badly. It had been eating at him, his failure to gua Thibaut- She had not been supposed to notice, bur in tl 96 JwUth Tour night, each night, he had left his place among the men and spread his mat outside the room she shared with her maid. She had heard him come, light as his step was, and known when helay down. His nearness was like a hand on her skin.

Daylight dissipated it. She was almost sorry. Yesterday and the day before, she had been too glad to be on the road away from Jerusalem, to feel the heat or the dust or the flies. And there had been Aidan to watch: for a little while again, a pil- grim, rapt as any mortal man in the wonder of the road to Jericho, and the thronging pilgrims, and the chanting and the jostling and the waving of palms as they went down to the river. The caravan had not paused, and he had not asked. He had simply separated himself from it, and she had followed him, hardly knowing why, perhaps with some dim sense of watching over him. Little as he needed it. He had his palm branch now, his badge of the greatest of pilgrimages; and when he took it, for once he was almost serene. A potent serenity.

Within an hour, he was among the caravan again, no more or less quiet than he ever was, and the palm was laid carcfuUy in his baggage.

And now even the cross was hidden, and he seemed all an infidel; and she was tired. She ached from two days in the saddle; her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, drying at last, throbbed dully in their bonds; sweat trickled down her back, itching abominably where she could not reach. But worse than any of it was mem- ory.

They had been late leaving Jerusalem. Someone's brother had got himself lost among the taverns; the man being one of the richer merchants in the caravan, the master had suffered an hour's delay to hunt him down. He had come in a good hour afrer prime, still mildly drunk, and much bemused by the hue and cry.

Joanna owed him a month or two in purgatory. For if he had not got himself lost, they would have left at dawn, and Ranulf would not have found her.

He had bathed, for a miracle. His hair was cut; his chin was newly shaved, with a nick to prove it. He did not burst in as she might have expected, but asked admittance of the porter, and let himself be set in the receiving room to wait for her.

When G.o.defroi told her who had come, she said, "I won't see him. Tell him to go away." But, as the seneschal began to bow, his face as carefully neutral as any man's could be, she stopped him with a word. "No. Wait." She was shaking. Idiot. 97.

What was there to be afraid of? Ranulf was no a.s.sa.s.sin. "Tell him 111 come."

G.o.defroi went. She lingered. Her room was empty, her bag- gage gone, taken to the caravan. She finished puffing on her traveling clothes. Dura plaited her hair and wound it round her head. Her shaking came and went. Her stomach was a cold knot.

She swallowed hard. "Face it," she told herself. "Get it over with." She wiped sweating palms on her skirt and went down.She was in the room before she saw who was there. Ranulf did not even look up. He was deep in colloquy with Aidan, the two of them looking as if they had sworn fast friendship.