Crusader Captive

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“You had to fight him?” His voice was low and fierce and for her ears only. “Why didn’t you call out?”

“No, no. It wasn’t that.” She gave the two guardsmen a quick glance and kept her response as cryptic as she could. “He, uh, sapped his strength such that his wounds overcame him.”

Her castellan swore under his breath. “I feared something like this when I saw his back.”

A layer of guilt piled on top of Jocelyn’s churning emotions. Hugh had indeed told her de Rhys had been hard used. But she’d been so determined to go forward with her scheme that she’d ignored the warning.

“Come and help me with him.”

Gathering her skirts, she hurried back up the winding tower stairs. Hugh issued a curt order to the other men to remain where they were and followed. When they reentered her chamber, de Rhys still lay where he’d fallen, his naked body sprawled atop his scattered clothing.

“He’s too heavy for me alone,” Hugh muttered. “I’ll need to summon aid to carry him from your chamber.”

“I can’t have him seen unclothed like this! Help me draw on his breeks, then we’ll drag him to the bed.”

Hugh’s glance cut from the fallen knight to Jocelyn. “Your bed?”

“Yes.”

She struggled to gather her scattered wits. Her original plan had called for de Rhys to depart her chamber when he’d done what she’d required of him and spend the rest of the night in the great hall with her other knights before departing on the morrow. Now…

Now she must needs cover what they’d done here to protect him from the curiosity of her people and, ultimately, the king’s wrath.

“I’ll…I’ll say I had you bring him to my solar so I might speak with him about his capture,” she got out, hastily revising her plan. “While we were speaking, de Rhys appeared most weak. I bade him show me his wounds and was so appalled by them that I insisted he lie abed that I might tend him. That’s what…That’s what any chatelaine would do,” she finished lamely.

Sir Hugh grunted, but didn’t gainsay her. Muttering under his breath, he knelt beside de Rhys and pulled the man’s breeks up one leg, then the other. With another grunt, he rolled the man over. Once his nether parts were covered, he signaled to Jocelyn.

“Grasp his arm.”

They dragged him to the bed without too much difficulty. Getting him into it was another matter altogether. As strong as Sir Hugh was, he had to strain to lift de Rhys’s dead weight. He got him to the edge of the mattress finally and let him collapse face-down into the linen sheets.

The stained linen sheets. Hugh’s sharp glance took in the reddish smears and cut to Jocelyn. “So it’s done?”

“It’s done.”

He nodded once, a quick jerk of his chin, and maneuvered de Rhys’s legs onto the mattress. When the man was fully laid out, the castellan regarded her in the flickering light from the fire.

“Had it been a husband you’d bedded with, you could show these sheets as proof that you came to him a maid.”

She was all too aware of that. Aware, as well, that she could not use the sheets as proof of her lost virginity. The king would question whether the stains were the result of her monthly courses. Or whether she’d cut herself. Or sprinkled sheep’s blood on the sheets.

She didn’t doubt Baldwin would have his personal physician examine her. Perhaps in front of witnesses. The prospect made Jocelyn writhe inside, but she would endure such a humiliation, and gladly, if it turned the Emir of Damascus against marriage to her.

“I’ll tell my women the stains are from de Rhys’s wounds,” she said with another hasty revision to her scheme.

“If you don’t want them to know what occurred here this night,” Sir Hugh said gruffly, “you’d best wash yourself first. You have the scent of him on you.”

In her flustered state, Jocelyn had forgotten the yeasty stickiness between her thighs. She guessed it, too, was tinged with red. And obviously gave off a distinctive scent. That an old and loyal vassal should have to remind her of such an intimate matter brought heat to her cheeks.

“I’ll tend to it.”

Nodding, he turned to leave.

“Sir Hugh…”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

His brow creased into deep lines. “I fear you’ll be cursing rather than thanking me before this sorry business is done with, milady.”

He took the tower stairs again and closed the door behind him. Jocelyn cleansed herself quickly, using scented oils and a linen towel she wadded up with her torn bliaut. She stuffed both in her clothes chest to be disposed of later. Only then did she go to the door and call for her page.

The remaining hours of the night passed in a seemingly endless blur.

To her dismay, de Rhys soon grew feverish. She and Lady Constance, wife to the knight who governed Fortemur’s armory and a woman with great knowledge of medicinal herbs, took turns spreading soothing balms on his inflamed back and bathing his sweat-drenched body. At one point he became so flushed that they feared for his life.

Racked with guilt that she’d brought him to such a state, Jocelyn sent for the castle priest. As gentle, elderly Brother Joseph prayed over the sick man, she sank to her knees on her intricately carved prie-dieu. Head bowed, she pressed her palms together so hard that pain shot through her wrists. Yet the prayers that normally fell by rote from her lips wouldn’t come.

She’d fornicated with this man. Until she confessed that grievous sin and did penance, how could she ask God’s mercy on him or on herself? And until de Rhys was safely away, how could she confess?

Not that Father Joseph would betray her. The gray-haired priest had lived at Fortemur for most of his life. But he, too, was of the Church. If de Rhys muttered something in his delirium, if the good father learned through other means than confession what had occurred here, his conscience might compel him to report the matter through the Church hierarchy to the Grand Master of the Knights of the Temple. The Templars’ rules forbade them to so much as speak to a female. Having sexual concourse with one would cost a Templar his habit, his weapons, and his warhorse for a year or more.

Assuming, that is, de Rhys was even accepted into the order. Politics weighed with the Knights Templar as heavily as it did with the Knights Hospitaller here in the East. While both groups owed allegiance only to the Pope, their continued existence in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem depended on the survival of the kingdom itself. The Templars’ Grand Master would not look favorably on an aspirant who threatened an alliance King Baldwin was determined to secure.

Her fingers locked so tight her knuckles showed white, Jocelyn prayed most heartily for de Rhys’s quick recovery and departure from her life.

He quieted enough by dawn’s light for her to leave him in Lady Constance’s care while she attended Mass and broke her fast in the great hall with the rest of the keep’s residents.

Word had already spread of the stranger in their midst. Between the clink of ale cups and clatter of wooden spoons, she caught snippets of the gossip that was life’s blood to the more than three hundred souls who resided within Fortemur’s massive walls. Only one dared query her directly on the matter, however.

Red-haired and ruddy-faced Thomas of Beaumont had journeyed to Outremer to share in the riches and booty of a conquered land. He’d yet to win a fief of his own in battle, however, and must needs be content with managing lands belonging to others. A distant cousin of the king, Thomas counted himself lucky to have been given stewardship of Fortemur.

As steward, he had a hand in fiscal and judicial matters. With Jocelyn’s close watch, he kept a tally of all revenue-generating activities within the keep and its surrounding farms and orchards. He was also charged with ensuring appropriate levies were paid into the king’s coffers. As reimbursement for his services, he took a share of these levies to himself.

Jocelyn had made every effort to accommodate the man and his sharp-nosed wife. She’d assigned them the sunny bower she’d called her own before moving into the lord’s chamber. She made sure Sir Thomas accompanied her to the cellars when she had business in the counting room, where the keep’s gold and treasures were kept. Likewise when she unlocked the spice room to dole out precious peppercorns or cinnamon sticks to the cooks. He rode with her when she went to inspect the outlying farms and orchards, and dispensed in her name such justice as she decided appropriate.

Yet try as she would, she could not like the man. He was puffed up with his own consequence and quick to remind everyone within hearing of his kinship to the king. Worse yet, his wife was petty and cruel to those who served her. Jocelyn had spoken to the woman about that more than once. On the last occasion, she’d threatened to take a whip to her if she struck or kicked or pinched another maid so hard as to raise bruises. Thus Jocelyn had to stifle a groan when she saw Sir Thomas and his shrew of a wife already seated at the high table.