"I have lots of problems."

The velvet voice laughed softly . "The one I mean is your choice of city. If you're trying to escape the One God, the one who gets to have His pronouns capitalized, you've fl ed to the mouth of the wolf.

From the time that the temple mount was simply Mount Moriah, this city has been full of One Gods, all forms and permutations of Him, in every brick and stone. There was a short period under Tiberias when the Romans built a few pagan temples. But under Constantine, it was the One God again."

"You know a lot about Jerusalem."

"I told you, my family has been here for a thousand years, give or take a few. Remember, the family legend has it that one of my ancestors was here at the time of the First Crusade."

"That's right. The emir, you said." Valerie felt the conversation leading off on a tangent, but at least they were talking.

"Yes, Idris ad Dawla was allowed to leave with a small contingent.

My family descends from him, and a lot of the men in the family carry the name Idris." Najya tilted her head toward her . In the cooling night air, Valerie could smell the faintest hint of perfume. Najya had put perfume on. For her. The full lips, a handsbreadth away, moved, and fi nally their sound reached her ear. "You were saying? About the Aton?"

"Well, that's it, basically. The Egyptian gods want to be recognized again, and we four were supposed to let the world know about them.

Except that two of us are dead because of that mission, and if I tell this to anyone but you, I'll be laughed out of the profession. Even you're barely holding back a laugh. I can sense it."

Najya leaned back a fraction, leaving a space between them.

Valerie felt the cool evening air on her suddenly exposed skin. "Y ou can't sense anything about me," Najya said.

"No. I'm sorry. I guess I don' t. It's just that I care...about you."

She avoided the dangerous word 'for.' "I don't want you to run off until you know everything."

Najya leaned in again. "Listen to me. I know all about you. I covered the story of your discovery. I know it took you years of research * 177 *

because I read your articles. I know that while you were mysteriously absent, your supervisor was killed in a sandstorm, and when you just as mysteriously came back, you oversaw the cataloging of Egypt'

s greatest fi nd of the century. One does not laugh at someone like that."

She paused, the touch of her arm underscoring her support.

"Besides," she said brightly. "There's a fantastic story here. And there's no way I'm leaving you until I fi nd out what it is."

"And you don't think it's 'famous archaeologist loses mind'?"

"Could be. But whatever it is, I'm staying around for it."

"What about Harry?"

"Harry?" Najya seemed perturbed by the leap in logic.What'

s Harry got to do with anything?"

"Well, you have his things. You're sleeping with him," Valerie blurted.

"Slept with him. After a few beers on a hot day. Why do you care?

Besides, if he hadn' t gotten me the assignment in Cairo, I wouldn' t have covered the train wreck and I'd never have met you. Being with him meant nothing. That sort of thing never means anything."

Valerie leaned back against the tunnel wall. "Y ou're not in love with him?"

"In love?" Najya shook her head. "Romantic love may be a Western myth. How would you know it's love, anyhow, and not just sex?"

Valerie closed her eyes, remembering. "He...she...would be an obsession. Every event would be colored by the thought of them.

Everything you saw or did you'd want to tell them about. Everything they did you'd want to know about." Her mouth curled up on one side.

"Although it sounds a little stupid when you say it all in the plural."

Najya's voice was barely audible. "I've only ever felt that about you." The remark was so matter -of-fact that Valerie almost missed it.

"Me?" She studied the enigmatic Arab face. In the low light of the pool, it reminded her of a Bedouin woman.

But Najya Khoury was nothing like the Bedouin. "Since you found us in your room in Cairo, I've thought about you," she said.

"You knew who I was then, didn't you? Did you also know my...

disposition?"

"Yes. Rumors of that sort spread quickly in journalistic circles.

And then when I saw you in the hammam, well, of course I couldn' t * 178 *

Vulture's Kiss help but think about...that."

"As I recall, we talked about religion."

"Did we? I don't remember. I kept trying to imagine you. With a woman."

Valerie leaned away in mock horror . "So while I was waxing philosophical, you were playing a dirty movie in your head."

"No, not exactly . I wasn' t quite sure what women did, I mean beyond kissing. It was a sort of idee fi xe, but I could imagine it only so far."

"Idee fi xe," Valerie murmured. "How charming to hear French spoken with an Arabic accent."

They had run the subject to its end and both fell silent, looking away from each other. The orange ground lights refl ected off the water of the pool and fl ickered like candlelight below their faces.

Najya chuckled softly. "If you were a man, you'd have kissed me by now."

"Please don't tease me, Najya," Valerie whispered. "I've got all the uncertainties I can handle right now."

"I'm not teasing. For the fi rst time in my life I'm deadly serious. I just don't know how to do it."

"Do what?"

"Make love to you."

The words hung in the evening air like a fragrance. Valerie let them linger and settle around them. For a moment the declaration blocked out everything else in the world and created a precious private space. Then she breathed out softly, "Come back to my room with me and I'll show you."

"I think it begins something like this." Najya' s mouth suddenly covered hers.

Valerie responded tentatively, with little explorations of lips and teeth and tongue. She stopped and broke away for a moment, for the sheer excitement of starting again, this time more ardently-of fering, taking, giving back again.

Valerie touched the warm face, let her fi ngertips drift down to the pulsing throat. Their mouths began a sort of wordless dialogue, and they grew to know each other by degrees, each venturing a bit, then opening to the other.

Najya's hand slid over her ribs and up her back, enfolding her, and * 179 *

she felt Najya's breasts press against her own.

Valerie waited for the familiar rush, the sudden hot tightness in her sex, and the ur ge to take, quickly , before opportunity passed. But something unfamiliar happened. something drew her in, to a gentle back and forth in which she seemed to slowly lose the outline of herself.

Like being underwater, in the embrace of something that was scarcely different from herself, drawing breath from it and giving it back.

She ceased to care about the danger and the dread, and surrendered to the thing that summoned her.

It was, a small part of her recalled, a little like the time she died.

* 180 *

Vulture's Kiss

42.

Deus Lo Volt Ludolf stood next to Godfrey of Bouillon on the highest platform of the siege tower. Still outside the range of Saracen arrows, he watched the battering ram roll up against the southern gate.

Under the hide-bound wattle that covered them from arrows and fl ames, the rammers warmed to their task. Ludolf saw the end of the log as it swung back for each blow . The ironclad head, he knew , ate away at the wood with every thrust, and each deep thud seemed to reverberate through the ground and up to his own body.

"Like defl owering a virgin, isn't it?" Godfrey quipped.

Ludolf chuckled softly. "A Saracen virgin."

"We'll make her Christian soon enough," the duke said.

"Yes, and on this day above all. Friday , when they crucifi ed our Lord. This could be the very hour of His death. How fi tting that today we make the heathen answer for that sin."

"Well spoken, Ludolf. I will remember that," Godfrey said before his attention was diverted to the Muslim prisoners being dragged past them. "You know what to do, ser geant," the duke called down to the men below.

"Yes, my lord." The soldiers knocked the two captives to the ground and trussed each one compactly, knees to chin and arms around their shins. While they thrashed uselessly, the Frankish soldiers lifted them into the baskets of the catapults. At a signal from the duke, the counterweight was dropped and the men thrown high into the air. They tumbled as they arced, and if they screamed as they crashed onto the city walls, the sound was covered by the cheering of the Franks.

Then the siege tower was pushed forward. When it came into range, fl aming arrows rained down on them, but the water-soaked hides kept them from igniting the tower.

It seemed like hours but was only a fraction of that when they reached the wall. Arrows fl ew at them like locusts and soldiers fell on both sides, but miraculously, Ludolf remained unscathed, though sweat and smoke stung his eyes and he could scarcely see. The wall was close, * 181 *

so close, yet too heavily defended to permit a foothold .

Then fi nally it happened. "Look! Praise God. They're ablaze!"

Ludolf pointed to the nearby tower on the wall where heavy smoke had caused the defenders to fall back.

"Who will be the fi rst Christian on the wall?" Godfrey shouted, his heavy sword over his head, poised to strike the fi rst Saracen within reach. "Ludolf of Tournai!" He called out his own name as he leaped onto the wall. Euphoric, he slashed left and right as he ran, and neither arrow nor blade touched him. In a moment, the assault ladders were thrown against that part of the wall, and scores of Franks joined him on the parapet. Jerusalem was breached.

Praise God! The Holy City was free!

Every Saracen man, woman, and child fl ed weaponless toward the Temple Mount, and Frankish soldiers struck them down at will. But Ludolf knew a city does not surrender until its ruler does, and Idris ad Dawla still held out within the Citadel.

Archers and knights were on the Citadel wall, but Raymond of Toulouse had told them to stand down. Ludolf threaded his way through the fi ghters to the cluster of knights at the forefront. At their center stood Godfrey of Bouillon and the white-haired Raymond of Toulouse.

" Ah, here is the fi rst Christian knight to enter Jerusalem." Godfrey clapped him on the shoulder . "Have a care, my friend. Ad Dawla and his guard have retreated to the safest spot in the city and are shooting arrows from the tower . But don't worry. My Lord Count of Toulouse will have them cleaned out in no time." Then he turned and, to Ludolf's surprise, descended the stairs again with his knights into the city.

An arrow whizzed downward past Ludolf 's head and struck a soldier on the wall behind him. He lifted his shield to his shoulder and waited for the count to reply . But Raymond was watching the streets below where troops under the other nobles were pillaging freely . One by one they seized the houses, great and small, and set the standards, banners, and shields of the new owner upon them to mark the claim.

"We're wasting our time here," Raymond said as a second arrow fl ew over his head. "I'm for leaving them in their tower to starve. What * 182 *

Vulture's Kiss do you think?"

Ludolf looked up at the impregnable structure. Vultures wheeled around it as they circled now above the entire city. He shook his head.

"If what I've heard is true, that will take months. The tower holds vast stores. And as you can see, those archers' openings look down on all four sides. I don't think you want your men shot at every day."

"We can't leave him there and we can' t force him out. What's left?" The count leaned his back against the crenellation in obvious frustration. "I suppose we can of fer him safe passage in exchange for surrender. I doubt he'll trust us, though." He crossed his arms across his blood-soaked tunic. "I wouldn't."

Ludolf took a step forward. "He should. On this glorious day for the True Faith, let us be men of honor."

"Of honor?" For the briefest moment Raymond's brow furrowed at the word, while below the platform on the streets the armies rampaged.

Then it passed. "Well said, Ludolf. Now, let's get this over with." He signaled to his sergeant. "Make the offer."

The sergeant shouted up to the tower and in a moment a voice came back. "For all of us? On your soul before Christ?"

Raymond shouted back, "Yes, on my soul before Christ. We are men of honor. Come down to the platform and we'll talk."

For a long time there was silence, and the vultures neared. One fl ew down to light on one of the merlons and would not be driven of f.

A soldier swung his blade at it and it fl uttered away, only to light again on a ledge midway up the tower.

Then the narrow door at the base of the tower opened and four archers appeared, weaponless. When it was clear there would be no attack, they called back and four more joined them.