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“I am not worried,” Lucien lied without remorse as he rose and bowed to Ceridwen. “So, you feel secure here, Raymond, at this keep? Do you need any men?”
“Ceridwen’s brother and I make a good team, as it happens. We have enough men. And I do not think it wise for you to fight alongside us. You are established too far into England, you might bring down the anger of King John upon your head.”
“I will fight for whom I please, Raymond, make no mistake.”
“Aye, I know. Just be careful, eh? Come get some rest, now. You have a long journey to East Ainsley tomorrow.” Raymond cuffed him good-naturedly. “But mind you, I shall be sending Squire Wace to visit whilst the year is yet new, and take measure of your progress toward a wedded state.”
“I look forward to it, Beauchamp.”
Lucien sighed and lay down by the fire, cocooned in blankets of both wool and the pleasant haze of mead. He hoped, as he did every night to little avail, that his dreams did not take him back to Acre, to the nightmare of the dungeon and the inexplicable, nagging sense of something left undone whenever he thought of Isidora….
Acre
With tears streaming down her face, Isidora knelt at her father’s bedside, holding his blue-veined, wasted hand. There was so much she needed to tell him, so much she needed to hear from him, and so little time.
Since Lucien’s departure, Deogal’s illness had worsened day by day, for months and years until she despaired of him ever getting well. He had the flux, could hold nothing down; he often did not recognize her and sometimes he raved.
But now, at the end, by the grace of God, he looked at her and spoke her name.
“Isidora…the Work…”
Even at the moment of his death, he spoke of the Work but not how he felt about her?
“My daughter, you must take the scrolls to Britain, to Lucien. My notes. And the small bundle, there, on the shelf behind the antimony…it is imperative. Promise me you will do this.”
She squeezed his trembling hand but said nothing. Even had she a way to find Lucien, she could not face his mild, brotherly regard again, nor deliver into his hands a fresh obsession that would undoubtedly drive him to death and madness as it had her father.
Deogal returned her grasp and pulled himself up to face her, his eyes burning with feeling. “You must, Isidora. Please…I beseech you. It is the Key, at long last…of all my students, he alone will understand its significance and bring the Work to a magnificent conclusion…”
“Why have you never shared your knowledge with me, Father? I—I might have been closer to you that way.”
“Nay, it is not for lasses such as yourself. Besides, your mother, God rest her soul, made me promise not to involve you. In order to protect you. But now, I have no choice. I beg this of you, before it is too late.”
Her mother made him promise? To protect her? Such isolation had not felt like protection! And now he would burden her with these dark arts, when all she wanted was to burn the texts in the athanor!
He loves me, even though he hurts me. Yet again Isidora felt the heat of shame for her ingratitude.
Deogal lay back, as if the effort of his entreaty was too much. “You are the only one I can trust, Isidora. This must be removed from Acre, taken as far from FitzMalheury as it can be.”
Despite the tearing of her own heart, Isidora could not bear the anguish in his eyes. She could not nay-say him, whatever the consequences. She took a deep breath.
“Of course, Father. I will see it done.” She pulled out the small, gilt Maltese cross she wore and kissed it. “I swear upon the Holy Cross and upon the grave of my adored mother, Ayshka Binte Amir, and upon the love I hold for you, my dear father, that I will complete the task you have set me, or die in the attempt.”
He smiled. “Good girl…” He sighed. His eyes closed and his fingers relaxed completely. Irrevocably.
“Father?” Disbelief, fear, grief, rage and desolation all competed for dominance within her. She fought to breathe, fought not to weep all over again.
He was gone! Leaving her nothing of himself but an errand. Not a word of love, only his habitual, “Good girl.” Just as one said, “Good dog.”
Isidora wailed and embraced his body in death as he had never allowed her to do in life. The overburdened moment froze for an instant. The scent of mint rose from a bowl of water she had used to bathe him as a warm, dry breeze wafted through the small window. But it did not stir Deogal’s sweat-dampened hair. Nothing could touch him now.
He was safe, beyond suffering.
Kalle FitzMalheury hurled his goblet against the sandstone wall of the castle’s refectory and rounded on the bearer of bad news. “What do you mean, Deogal is dead?”
The knight, a member of Salah al-Din’s own extended family, nodded gravely. “A few days ago, effendi. He was buried this morning.”
“Then where is the book, the material? The stone?”
The knight shrugged. “There was nothing but broken glass and crockery to be found. It looked as though a whirlwind had passed through the place.”
Kalle approached the man and sneered, his pale hair hanging in greasy wisps about his face. “And the girl? The half-breed?”
The knight did not retreat by even a fraction of an inch. He met Kalle’s chilly gaze. “She is gone, as well, effendi.”
“Her father had the protection of the Templars, but I doubt that she does. So find her, Faris al-Rashid. Bring her back and I will see to the rest.”
Faris bowed to Kalle, even as his fingers longed to grasp the hilt of his dagger. La—nay. Jesus Christ frowned upon cold-blooded murder even as did the Prophet. And, Faris had the feeling, even though newly baptized, that by his forbearance he himself would prove a better Christian than Kalle FitzMalheury.
He would seek out Isidora Binte Deogal, for he had his own reasons to find her.
Her head down, Isidora crept warily along the docks, avoiding the gaze of passersby. Sailors, merchants, thieves and beggars. Strangers, and dirty, dangerous ones at that.
Her heart thumped erratically in her chest. She had managed to smash what crucibles remained before she’d slipped out of her father’s house—just ahead of the man who had come searching—for what?
She did not know if he was a robber or an assassin—but Lucien had been taken once, by Kalle FitzMalheury, so it was not so unlikely to think they might be after her.
Especially if they thought her father had passed on his secrets to her. Which, apparently, was exactly what he had done.
Not for the first time, she cursed the Work. She needed a way to get on a vessel bound for England, or even France. In truth, she had little idea of how to go about it. Lucien’s voyage had been made possible with the aid of her father’s mysterious and invisible Templar allies.
But she had no idea how to contact them for help for herself. Her father’s wretched Work had eaten up what remained of their resources. All but a few pieces of silver and the items she had been charged to deliver to Lucien.
Seabirds screeched and the scents of tar and the briny low tide filled her nostrils, along with rotting fish entrails. Despite that, she was hungry and soon it would be dark. What could she do?
If she managed to get aboard some galley in secret, and was caught, the ship’s master might sell her into slavery to obtain his payment for her passage. Nay, she needed a better way. Perhaps one of them could use a cook or a washerwoman— A hand on her shoulder made her shriek, even as a gull cried out.
“Be not afraid—I mean thee no harm.”
She whirled about and looked into the deep brown eyes of a man—one clad in a contradictory mixture of eastern and western garb. A Franj surcoat over doubled links of the finest Persian mail. A modest turban crowned his head, but he was clean-shaven. His sword was not curved, but his dagger was, the hilt crusted with jewels, as well.
She found her voice at last. “Who are you?”
“I am here to help you. I am known as Faris al-Rashid. Kalle FitzMalheury sent me— Nay, wait!” His hand restrained her instant attempt at flight. “But my mother…my mother was Ayshka Binte Amir.”
Isidora chose to ignore the last part of his statement and concentrate on the first, for he still held her arm. “Please explain yourself, sir, for Kalle FitzMalheury is no friend of mine.”
Faris glanced about and drew her into a doorway, out of sight. “It was the only way I could get close to you, without arousing his suspicion.”
“Why do you want to get close to me?”
He caught her shoulders. “Because, Isidora, you are my sister—half sister—but my blood kin all the same. You and I are all that are left. The wars have taken everyone else close to us.”
His flimsy story was hard to believe. But she saw the reflection of her mother in his eyes, in the elegant sweep of his brows. “Take off your turban and let me see you properly.”
He unwrapped it to reveal wavy black locks and a central, down-pointing hairline at his forehead, just like hers. “Why now, and not before?” she whispered.
“She was widowed when my father was killed and I was sent to be fostered in one of the royal palaces. I did not know she had remarried, nor of your existence, and in my ignorance of the Franj, would not have wanted to know. In battle, I sang the praises of Allah as I cut the infidels to pieces, right along with everyone else.
“But afterward…afterward, something happened. I had a vision, Isidora. And I received instruction from an angel that my path was no longer with the army of Salah al-Din, may his great name be honored forever. For though his brother is wise and just, my heart was no longer in the jihad. Before she returned to God, I went to see umma.”
“You did?” Isidora’s eyes glazed with tears. She had seen her mother only once after she was taken to the house of lepers. Deogal had kept her close, isolated from others. He had been determined that Isidora not fall prey to the same disease. It had taken her much time and secret effort to find Ayshka. But her mother had forbidden her ever to return, and Isidora had not seen her again before she died.
“They say it is a judgment of God, to be afflicted thus, but she was in no pain, I swear to you. She asked me to find you and to give you this…” Faris produced a small, exquisitely carved wooden box, inlaid with ivory.
Isidora took it and carefully opened the lid. Inside, beneath a layer of red velvet, lay a beautiful but oddly crafted ring of silver. It was smooth on one edge and had rippling indentations on the other. She had never seen it before. But from her mother, it was a treasure indeed.
Faris spoke again. “She said you would know what to do with it, when the time is right. And she also said to tell you that Deogal loves—loved—you as a bird loves the air, for you were all that he had left of her, like the scent of jasmine, lingering…”
Isidora swallowed hard. Her father loved her only as a reminder of her mother? But what was wrong with her, that she could not rejoice for what blessings she had, instead of pining for what she had not?
“I—I have a brother. I am not alone. Oh…” Isidora covered her face and began to weep, as she had not done since the day her father died. Only the day before yesterday.
“Shh…” Faris held her and muffled her sobs against his sturdy chest. “We need to leave this place.”
But Isidora was not done. She wiped her eyes. “How is it you can be associated with Kalle? He is a mad dog when it comes to Muslims—”
“I converted, Isidora.”
She stared at him. “Not for me, please do not say it was for me.”
“Nay, because of the angel’s visitation, I was sincere. I am still sincere. And I sincerely hate Kalle, may the one God forgive me.”
“Aye, I, too, am guilty of that. But I need to get to England, Faris, to find a student of my father’s. Can you help me? W-will you come?” It was too much to ask, too much to hope for.
He grinned, a flash of white in the deepening shadows. “If I am to journey, I’ll need a squire, and you look a promising lad, eh?”
At this, Isidora’s heart began to feel a good deal lighter.
Chapter Six
Three months later
Ainsley Hall, England…
L ucien slouched in his great chair, absently watching his servants clear away the remains of the night’s dinner. Venison—heavy—and ripe as old cheese. Such leftovers would probably choke the paupers who received them.
He missed the foodstuffs of the east. Fruit and rice and pulses. Fare that did not immediately put one to sleep. But, he was indeed grateful for what he had. None of his people were starving this winter. The hall was festooned with greenery and folk were in a state of pitched excitement, for tomorrow began the Christmas revels.
For weeks the celebrations would continue, the Feast of Fools being the highlight for those whose chief pleasures were drunkenness, dung-tossing and bawdy displays of dubious wit. The festivities would no doubt leave him exhausted, when he had much to ponder in the privacy of his solar. And such privacy was a rarity. Indeed, even now, Lucien felt a presence at his back.
“My lord.”
Mauger, his not-to-be-denied seneschal. An impeccable man sent years ago by Lucien’s late father, to keep an eye on him. One who had appointed himself advisor, bodyguard and chief nag.
Aye, who needed a wife with one such as he at hand?
“Sir Mauger. How may I be of service to you?”
The impressively large seneschal came ’round to face him and bowed. “Really, my lord Lucien, don’t mock me thus.”
Lucien smiled thinly. “How can I do otherwise? Even your plea for the betterment of my manners comes forth as an order. Dare I hope you will be chosen King of Misconduct for the Epiphany Feast?”
Mauger shook his head, making his dark curls bounce, and raised his eyes heavenward, his palms together. “I must pray for patience, Lord Lucien, for as much as I love thee, I’d see you improved as your father, God rest him, wished.”
“One might think if I have not improved sufficiently yet, I never will.”
Mauger put his fists on his hips. “What you must improve is your attention to the ladies who attend the revels, my lord. Your duty is clear, as is mine to remind you of it. You must produce an heir. Your uncle Conrad and lady-mother are as set upon it as was your father.”
Lucien shifted in his seat and avoided the seneschal’s flinty gaze. As much as Lucien loved his parents and still respected his uncle, their plans for him had not taken into account his own desires. “Plenty of time for that.”
“There is not. Children take years to grow, and often don’t survive. You must start now, Lucien, and your lord father charged both me and Lord Conrad to see that it comes to pass.”
“Oh, and what do you intend to do? Chain me to some hapless female and instruct me step by step?”
Mauger stared at Lucien, his eyes frankly challenging. “If you refuse to cooperate, then I’ll secure for you a suitable bride. Upon your uncle’s and lady-mother’s approval, of course.”
“Not mine?”
“If you force me to such action, your approval is forfeit.”
Lucien rubbed his unshaven chin with the back of his hand. “From your tone, Mauger, one might think you nursed a grievance against me.”
“You nearly got yourself killed in Acre—and not in any noble, Christian cause! If you’d allowed me to go with you, no such misery would have taken place. And furthermore, had you returned in a timely manner, the marriage your father had already arranged would’ve taken place long ago and we’d not be having this discussion.”
Lucien allowed himself a small sigh. “Ah, so it is that old complaint—I left you behind! Nay, Mauger. I needed you here, and a marvelous job you made of it. Nary a revolt, nor a shilling lost, nor a lamb or cow unaccounted for.”
Mauger’s ruddy face darkened even further. “Your description of my worthy efforts sounds like an accusation, my lord.”
“Your worthy efforts make me nearly superfluous, Sir Mauger. I am apparently only required as a means to sire offspring.”
“Indeed, look at it any way you like. You’ve been home quite long enough to settle down. But there’s yet another matter of great concern, my lord.”
Lucien waved a hand toward a carved, leather-seated chair to his left. “Please, take a seat, Mauger. Had I known this would go on so long, I would have offered it immediately.”
The seneschal sat heavily in the chair that Lucien’s lady would have occupied, had he a lady. Mauger leaned forward and spoke in a lowered tone. “My lord Lucien, this unsuitable preoccupation of yours, this dalliance with sorcery—”
“Alchemy is not sorcery, Mauger. Only the ignorant believe thus.”
