Crusader Captive (10 page)

Simon didn’t call her back, although keeping silent took every shred of his iron will.

She wanted him. As much as he wanted her. She’d ripped the truth from the depths of his soul, and now he must live with the echo of that raw admission for the rest of his life. Every time he knelt in prayer, he would have to force his mind to God instead of thoughts of her. Every time he swung a sword in battle, his enemy would have the face of the man Jocelyn would soon wed.

The thought of another man’s hands and mouth on her took everything that Simon was and twisted it in knots. Not for the first time since Jocelyn had taken him to her bed, he considered forswearing himself. According to the Bishop of Clairvaux, such an act would condemn his dissolute sire—and himself—to eternal damnation. Right now, with the taste of her still on his lips and his blood clamoring for more, Simon would count the cost well worth it.

Slowly, like the insistent rays of the sun burning through a gray mist, reason reasserted itself. Even if he did abandon his honor and all thoughts of joining the Knights Templar, Jocelyn was the Lady of Fortemur, with all the honors and chains that came with it. Neither the king nor his mother would consider giving such a rich prize to the landless younger son of a knight whose very name carried the stink of dishonor.

His face as bleak as his soul, Simon spit out a foul oath and turned toward the camp.

Jocelyn’s chest didn’t stop heaving or her knees shaking until she was in the shadow of the queen’s tent. Even then she had to fold her arms around her waist and pace outside until her heart slowed its frantic hammering.

It had yet to resume a regular beat when a page scurried out of the tent and held up the flap. A moment later, Queen Melisande herself emerged. Her jeweled coronet sparkled in the waning light, as did the gold and silver stitchery in the surcoats of the two nobles who followed her out.

Jocelyn was too unsettled to join the queen. Succumbing to a cowardly urge, she tried to duck behind the tent. She’d taken only one quick step, however, before Melisande spotted her.

“Lady Jocelyn?”

She dipped into a curtsy. “Majesty.”

“What have you been about?”

“I was seeing to the disposition of my men.”

The queen’s delicately arched brows drew into a straight line. Hooking an imperious finger, she commanded Jocelyn to approach.

“Why are your cheeks so flushed?”

“Are they flushed?” Shrugging, she tried to feign nonchalance. “I must have walked overfast.”

The face stamped on so many of the coins minted in the Kingdom of Jerusalem over the years took on a hard cast. Melisande didn’t posses the straight, classical nose or willowy neck sung of by troubadours. But her red-gold hair showed only a few traces of silver and her grip was firm as she pinched Jocelyn’s chin between thumb and forefinger and tipped her face to the light.

“Don’t play me for a fool, girl.” She cast a swift look at the pages, squires and courtiers observing their exchange with great interest and lowered her voice. “Do you think I don’t recognize the scrape a man’s whiskers leave on a woman’s cheeks and chin?”

“My lady…”

“Speak me no lies. Where have you been?”

“To see to my men. I swear it.”

“And which of those men put his mark on you?”

Dear sweet Lord! Jocelyn was fully prepared to accept the consequences of her desperate measures to avoid marriage to the emir. She’d known she would draw the king’s ire down on her head. The queen’s, as well, since Melisande concurred in the match.

But she would not have their wrath fall on Simon. Cursing the perversity that had made her tempt him to such violence that he’d left his mark on her, Jocelyn scrambled for an explanation that would satisfy the queen without endangering Simon. She could find none.

When she remained mute, Melisande’s eyes narrowed. “By all the saints! Are you besotted with some lowly knave who—”

She broke off and sucked in a swift breath.

“The knight who rode with you. The one who says he’s pledged to the Templars. I saw how he looked at you, and you at him. Is that who put this red in your cheeks and such despair in your heart?”

Fear for him drained whatever heat had been in Jocelyn’s cheeks. Cold to her bones, she shook her head. “If you sense despair, Majesty, it’s because of the marriage you and the king force on me.”

The queen’s mouth hardened. “You know how important this alliance is. So important that the king sent an urgent missive to the emir requesting he meet us here and claim his bride.”

“What?”

“Ali ben Haydar marches even now to join his army with ours.”

Feeling as though the ground had just shifted under her feet, Jocelyn made a desperate appeal. “Please hear me on this, milady. I cannot go willingly into marriage with him.”

“I understand your reluctance,” the queen said in what she obviously intended as a soothing tone. “Truly, I do. But too much rides on this union for us to give way to the tears and vapors of a frightened virgin.”

Jocelyn swallowed, dragged in a deep breath and lifted her chin. When her eyes met those of the queen, she didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. Melisande guessed the truth almost immediately.

“Oh, you foolish, foolish girl,” she hissed. “What have you done?”

“I—”

“Not here! Come inside. We must needs speak privately about this.”

Her heart stuttering, Jocelyn followed Melisande into her luxuriously appointed tent. As she’d assured Simon, the royal matriarch was well used to traveling the length and breadth of the kingdom. That in no way prevented her from bringing with her all she required for her comfort.

Persian carpets in rich jewel tones covered the ground. Hammered-brass lamps hung on chains from the tent poles. Folding chairs were arranged around strapped campaign trunks that doubled as eating and writing tables.

The queen’s scribe sat at one of the trunks, scribbling furiously with a quill. Her chief lady-in-waiting directed a page on the proper way to set out gold plates and goblets on another trunk. Melisande wasted no time in dismissing all three.

“Leave us, Lady Sybil. Take the others with you.”

Her tone invited no question or hesitation. Lady, scribe and page hurried to obey. When the flap dropped behind them, Melisande herself splashed wine into two goblets. She thrust one into Jocelyn’s hand and drank from the other before giving the younger woman a look that sliced like a claymore.

“I’ve known you since you were in swaddling clothes. Your mother served me well in the first years of her marriage. Your grandsire fought at my father’s side. So do not think to fob me off with lies or half truths.”

Pinned by her unrelenting stare, Jocelyn could only nod.

“Now, tell me what in the name of all the saints you’ve done.”

Chapter Ten

T
he moment Jocelyn had schemed for and dreaded in equal parts had arrived. Yet now that she’d come to the point of revealing what she’d done, she was caught in a trap of her own making.

Why in God’s name had she taunted Simon into such rough kisses? His beard had all but branded her. Now she would have to dance over dangerously hot coals to shield him from the queen’s wrath.

“I wrote to you and to the king both regarding my feelings toward marriage to the emir,” she began.

“Yes, you did. Several times.” Melisande waved an impatient hand. “If ben Haydar had desired any other holdings but yours, we would have offered him a different bride. But Fortemur will give him the access to the sea he’s long desired. And you, Jocelyn, are Fortemur.”

“I won’t be if I wed the emir,” she retorted with more heat than wisdom. “I’ll become but one of his many wives, shut away in a harem. I will not live such a life, milady.”

“Will not?” The queen’s head snapped up. “You forget yourself, girl! You are a royal ward. You will wed who we say.”

“I do not forget. How could I?”

She struggled to keep bitterness from coloring her voice. Melisande had put the needs of her kingdom ahead of her own since the day of her birth. Somehow, someway, Jocelyn must convince her that those needs could be met by other means than this loathsome marriage.

“I could grant the emir’s caravans right of passage through my lands. Mayhap a portion of the port taxes. Surely that would satisfy his demands.”

“Grants may be revoked. Wives may not. In most cases,” the queen was forced to add.

“The emir doesn’t want a wife.” Jocelyn couldn’t control the bitterness now. It came from deep inside and spilled into her voice. “He wants an untried virgin to take to his bed. One he may bloody his shaft on. It’s said he gets no pleasure unless he causes pain.”

“Where did you hear such salacious rumors?”

“Where did I not! It’s common knowledge, Majesty.”

“It’s gossip of the most mean sort.”

Her tone was so cold and unyielding that Jocelyn knew she had to take another tack. In a last, desperate attempt, she appealed to the queen’s piety.

“As you reminded me not moments ago, you’ve known me since I was in swaddling clothes. Like you, I was taught from my earliest days to manage my holdings. Now you would have me relinquish that authority and give my birthright to a nonbeliever.”

“A nonbeliever who tolerates all faiths.”

Jocelyn’s heart sank. Piety, obviously, ran together with politics in the mind of a woman who’d given every day of her life to maintaining Christian control of the Holy Land.

“Need I remind you that this union has the blessing of the Church?” the queen continued coldly. “The Patriarch of Jerusalem himself reviewed the marriage contracts and is satisfied that you’ll be allowed to practice your own religion.”

“And will the Patriarch convince my lord and husband to let me confess my sins to a priest? I’m told the only males his wives may have discourse with are eunuchs.”

She realized her mistake the moment the words passed her lips. Melisande seized on them immediately.

“So it’s discourse you want, is it?” Her shrewd eyes raked Jocelyn’s cheek and chin. “Is that what you did with the knight pledged to the Templars? The one I suspect left those marks on your face?”

“Majesty…”

“Surely you know once your knight takes his vows he cannot contact you again, much less have discourse.”

Jocelyn could not falter now. Simon’s life hung in the balance. Shrugging, she tried to deflect the arrow aimed at him.

“The king himself requested de Rhys continue as captain of my guard. Until then, he must needs speak with me.”

“Speak with?” the queen echoed slowly, dangerously. “Or give you the means to escape this marriage you so despise. Have you laid with him?”

“No!”

Her response was too swift, too forceful, and spoke more of desperation than indignation. Melisande saw through it immediately.

“Tell me, girl. Are you maid or not?”

“I…”

“Tell me,” the queen ordered, her eyes blazing, “else I will summon my physician and have him examine you before a tentful of witnesses.”

“No, I am not a maid.”

Throwing aside her goblet, Melisande lashed out with an openhanded slap that sent Jocelyn staggering backward.

“You fool! You headstrong, selfish fool. You know how much we need the army that the emir brings with him. You’ve not only put our kingdom at risk, you’ve put de Rhys’s head on the block.”

“It wasn’t him! I swear by all that is holy.”

Until that moment Jocelyn didn’t know—couldn’t know—how deeply she held Simon in her heart. Before, her only concerns were to spare herself a loathsome marriage and him the king’s wrath. Now she would consign her very soul to the devil to keep him safe.

“I gave myself to Geoffrey,” she said desperately.

“Geoffrey?”

“Geoffrey de Lusignan. You must remember him. My grandsire arranged for us to wed after the first lord I was betrothed to fell in battle.”

The queen’s brows snapped together. “Aye, I remember de Lusignan.”

“He was young.” Near tripping over her tongue, Jocelyn wove a hurried web of truths and lies. “Young and merry. And so handsome his mere kiss threw me into girlish raptures. I…I laid with him before he rode into battle for the last time.”

“You were but a child then! You couldn’t have celebrated more than ten name days.”

“Eleven. I’d celebrated my eleventh name day. Although my grandsire decreed me still too young to consummate the marriage, I’d started my courses. I was a woman in the eyes of God and the law. You yourself were only a year older when you wed the Count of Anjou.”

The pointed reminder of the queen’s turbulent marriage made Melisande stiffen.

“The difference,” she said frigidly, “is that I did my duty and wed where my father said I must. As will you, Jocelyn, if the emir will still have you.”

“Majesty, I implore you…”

No!” She flung up a hand. “Don’t say another word. I cannot allow you to jeopardize everything I’ve worked for these many years. We need this alliance most desperately to protect our western borders. So, too, do we need the army the emir brings to help us retake Blanche Garde.”

Jocelyn could see in her face that the happiness of one royal ward was a small price to pay for the safety of an entire kingdom. Melisande and her son would throw her to the wolves to seal this fragile alliance. She could only hope that the emir would repudiate the proposed marriage once he learned she was no maid.

If he learned.

With a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach, she realized neither the king nor his mother was beyond sending her to the emir despite her altered state. God alone knew what might happen if Ali ben Haydar took her to bed and discovered he’d been duped.

As if echoing her thoughts, Melisande pointed to the tent flap. “Get you gone. I must think how best to deal with this turn of events.”

“Please, Majesty…”

“Go.”

Sick at heart, Jocelyn got to her feet. The deepening purple haze that greeted her when she emerged made her blink in confusion. Her mind was in such turmoil that she’d lost all sense of time.

Was it just a short while since Simon had responded to her taunt? A half a turn of the hourglass since she’d felt his mouth on hers? It might have happened in another lifetime.

Desolation filled her as she looked around the bustling camp with unseeing eyes. She felt lost. Defeated. And alone. So very alone.

The waves of self-pity that washed through her were as uncharacteristic as they were unwelcome. Then she remembered that she wasn’t the only one caught in this damnable coil.

Had the queen believed the lies she’d spouted? Was Simon safe, or would Melisande call him to account for the marks he’d made on her?

If she did, Jocelyn knew with sickening certainty, Simon would speak the truth. His honor wouldn’t allow him to do otherwise. Oh, he wouldn’t reveal what had happened the night she’d brought him back from El-Arish. He’d sworn never to speak of that and he wouldn’t. His honor wouldn’t allow it.

But he’d sworn no such oath about their time together in the crystal cave. She hadn’t thought to ask it of him. If pressed, he might speak the truth about that to save her from a marriage he knew she despised.

And he would die for it.

Terror closed her throat. She had to warn him. Convince him somehow, someway, to deny that they’d coupled. Or at least remain mute. He could do that, she thought as her fear for him clogged her lungs. He could say nothing at all and, by his silence, acquiesce in her lie.

Lifting her skirts, she began to run, and startled faces turned when she passed. Gruff voices called out to her.

“Milady!”

“What’s amiss?”

She didn’t get far. Less than twenty paces from the queen’s tent a familiar figure appeared in the deepening dusk.

“Hugh!” Near sobbing with relief at the sight of her most trusted confidant and adviser, she flung herself at his chest. “When did you arrive?”

“Just now. I brought Sir Guy, and the full complement of knights and men-at-arms that you ordered. De Rhys told me I would find you here, so I came straightaway in search of you.”

When she continued to cling to him, he patted her back awkwardly.

“What’s amiss, lady? Why do you weep?”

“I…I confessed to the queen.”

“The saints preserve us! You told her everything?”

“Yes. No.” She fought down the fear that threatened to choke her and shoved away from the comfort of his arms. “I let her know I’m no longer a maid, but I said it was Geoffrey de Lusignan I laid with.”

“De Lusignan!” Sir Hugh’s brows soared above his weathered face. “You were scarce out of short skirts when he fell in battle. The queen could not have believed he bedded you.”

“She did. She must.” She gripped his arms and dug her fingers into his mail. “You must tell Simon, Hugh. Now, before she questions him.”

Astonishment at her bold-faced lie gave way to confusion. The castellan shook his head and tried to make sense of her breathless disclosures.

“I don’t understand. If you told Melisande you laid with Geoffrey de Lusignan, why would she question de Rhys?”

“I met with him earlier.” Her hands went to her cheeks. “His…his beard scraped my face. The queen saw the marks and guessed their source.”

“Saints preserve us, Jocelyn!”

“I know,” she said miserably. “I’ve twisted matters beyond measure. Just tell Simon what I have done, Hugh, before the queen summons him to her tent. Convince him to put aside his thrice-damned honor and go along with my lie.”

He gave her a look she’d never before seen on his face. Was it disapproval? Disappointment? A combination of both, she realized as he shook his head again.

“Never did I think to hear the Lady of Fortemur scorn a man for holding to his honor.”

“It could well put his head on the block!”

Breathing hard and fast, she fought the almost overwhelming feeling of despair over the morass she’d plunged both herself and Simon into.

“The queen repeated yet again how much she and the king desire an alliance with the emir. If the alliance falls through… If Simon shares the blame with me, he’ll feel the full weight of their displeasure.”

“You knew that before you drew him into your web of deceit.”

“I thought I could preserve his identity! I thought he would be well gone from my life before I revealed my altered state to the king and his mother. Nor,” she added, sick at heart, “did I imagine that my scheme would put at risk his intent to join the Knights Templar.”

Bernard de Tremelay might field an army of knights who owed allegiance to none but him and the Pope, but the Templars’ very existence was tied to the survival of Baldwin’s kingdom. The Grand Master would back the king and his mother in whatever fate they decided for Simon.

“It’s a fine coil you’ve landed de Rhys in, Jocelyn.”

“I know,” she said again, hanging her head.

The weight of Hugh’s disapproval was crushing. Her fear for Simon outweighed it by a thousand measures.

“Please, speak with him.”

“And say what?”

“Tell him I cannot have him on my conscience. Tell him he must not admit we laid together or…”

Or what? What could induce Simon to lie, or at least keep silent?

“Or I will say he seeks only to protect me. That, in truth, I made up the whole tale of surrendering my maidenhead to escape a marriage the queen knows I despise.”

“That’s easily enough disproved.”

“Mayhap. Mayhap not.”

The bitter thoughts that had followed her out of the queen’s tent came back with brutal force.

“As anxious as Melisande is to see this alliance done, she could well instruct the king’s physician to confirm my virgin’s shield is still intact. She could even have one of her ladies show me how to weep and writhe in pain and cut myself so that I bleed profusely when the emir takes me to bed.”

“Jocelyn!”

“What? Don’t say it can’t be done. Shall I tell you which of my ladies used pig’s blood to stain the sheets on her wedding night?”

That silenced him.

“Go to Simon, Hugh. Please! Tell him I will not have him bear the consequences of my rash acts.”

The aged knight’s face was little more than a blur in the deepening dusk, but Jocelyn saw his jaw work from side to side.

How had she brought him and Simon and herself to such a coil? When had matters become so tangled that not even an argonaut’s sword could slice through the knots?

Shamed to her very soul, she stretched out a hand. The sudden ball of fire that launched into the sky behind him made her jerk it back.

“What…?”

The ball soared high in the purple sky, trailing a tail of brilliant sparks. Jocelyn recognized it for what it was immediately.

“Hugh!” she gasped. “Look!”

The knight spun around and spit out a violent oath. Like her, he needed only a glance to grasp what that blazing ball portended.

“Greek fire,” he snarled through bared teeth.

The mere name was enough to inspire terror. First used by the Byzantines to repel Saracen attacks against Constantinople, the fiery projectiles had since become a staple of both besieging and besieged armies. Soldiers sprayed by the combination of flaming resin, quicklime and sulphur died most agonizing deaths. Wooden siege engines and towers burned to cinders.