Isra stopped, knowing her back was to Kahn but more willing to offer her vulnerability to the tiger rather to the evil man who now stood in the doorway.
“I wouldn't do that if I were you, fellow,” Zeus warned in a not-so-friendly voice. He and Arpetto stood on either side of the tongue, Nickle having retreated to the safe embrace of Helena. Isra saw from the corner of her eye that Barnaby was sidling toward the doorway with them both, the dogs trotting after them, for once, silently.
Hamid stepped one boot inside the wagon and Kahn turned his head, knowing the instant his sanctuary had been breached.
“I shall wring the life out of you before all gathered here, and I have no care for it at all,” he said. “You have caused me great grief from my master and you will pay for it. Come with me quietly and perhaps you will live.”
“I am not afraid of you,” Isra answered, lifting her chin.
“No?” he challenged with a despicable smile and a glance toward the whip in her hand.
Isra tossed the long leather weapon to the floor with a clatter. She raised her eyebrows at Hamid.
He stepped closer. “I mean what I say: I will wrap my hands around your throat and . . .”
“Stop talking about it and do it, then,” Isra snapped. “I do not think you will.
Coward
. Coward who rapes little girls.”
His smile actually deepened and he held his hands out like claws. “No, I shall not kill you at all, I think,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “I shall keep you. You shall be my toy.”
Isra shook her head. “Never.”
Hamid nodded. “Watch me.”
“I will,” Isra whispered. And then she commanded, “Hie, Kahn!”
She felt the heat of the large tiger through the layers of tunic and gown on her left. His wide head swayed in the air, taking in the scent of the turbaned man.
And then Kahn did a very strange thing; he took two steps forward, coming to stand at a perpendicular between Hamid and Isra, and his flank pressed back into her skirts. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but the fur over his shoulders was rigid, prickling.
“I have no fear of your cat,” he said with a condescending tilt of his head. And then Hamid reached over Kahn's back.
The tiger twisted and raised up so quickly that Isra saw little else beyond an orange-and-black-striped blur and then a spray of red. Hamid screamed and was clutching at his middle on the floor of the wagon as Kahn landed on his paws on either side of him.
The crowd didn't know whether the display was part of the performance or not; they seemed to be frozen in macabre concentration.
“Help me!” Hamid shouted in his native tongue, his hands struggling to keep the top and bottom halves of his torso together as a flood of blood pooled around him. His voice grew louder, shriller. “Help me! Help me!
Help mâ
”
Kahn swiped at the man's head with a roar, sending a spray of blood out onto the audience. Hamid screamed no more.
The crowd erupted in panic and began to scatter, stampeding in all directions, while Hamid's comrades approached the wagon at a run.
Zeus and Arpetto convinced them to change their minds about approaching, and in an instant both Damascene men lay in a heap on the floor. Kerak soldiers appeared to be regaining their bravado, several now headed toward the wagon.
“Come, Isra,” Zeus warned.
Isra froze; Zeus had used her true name.
He looked at her with exasperation. “We've known who you both were since the second week you were with us. Asa makes it his business to know the sort of people living with him. Now I need to shut the door and pull out of the keep before they close the gates!”
Kahn chose that moment to leap from the wagon.
Zeus and Arpetto ran.
Isra had no choice but to step around the gory mess that had been Hamid to follow the tiger, who sent the soldiers scattering until the hall was empty save for the backsides of the poor folk desperately trying to push through the doorways.
There was no time to try to lure Kahn back into the wagon and she couldn't leave him to wander the halls of Kerak; eventually some brave soul would come bearing a bow. And so Isra picked up the whip and skipped quickly down the wagon tongue. The crack of leather cut through the air.
“Kahn! Hie, Kahn!” She walked backward toward the steps up which Roman had disappeared. “Come, boy. Come, Kahn.” And then, with the albino monk's warnings loud in her ears, Isra turned her back on the tiger and ran.
Chapter 23
“W
ho dares invade my chamber?” the hoarse voice called as Roman eased into the room. He had to hurry lest the soldiers lounging in the antechamber be alerted to an unannounced visitor. “I have no desire to be placated like a child by Raynald's banal entertainments. I said to leave me!”
“I cannot, my liege.”
“Who goes there?”
Roman closed the door quietly and entered the luxurious chamber that was thick with the smell of sickness and decay. Three sets of double doors stood open to a walled balcony, long white curtains twitching in the meager breeze that did little to lessen the odor. The king was reclining on a couch, his back toward the door, and when he pushed himself up and looked over his shoulder, Roman could see the long, discolored dressings that bandaged the king. He was unrecognizable as the man Roman had last seen three years before at Chastellet.
“Who goes there, I say!”
“A friend,” Roman said, stepping toward the couch as if in a dream, a nightmare.
“Your name,” Baldwin barked in a hoarse voice.
“I regret that I cannot give you that, my liege.” He knew a moment of fear when Baldwin reached for a bell on a nearby table, but the king's arm swung like a pendulum as he struggled to sit up and his bandaged hand only knocked the alarm to the carpeted floor, where it gave a dull clank and was still.
That was when Roman saw that the gauzy strips continued over Baldwin's eyes, and he realized the king had not deigned to be present at the performance in his honor because such amusements were beneath him but because he could not see them.
The leprosy had taken Baldwin's sight.
“Get out,” the king cried hoarsely. “Whoever you are, get out!”
Roman's throat constricted at the sight of the brilliant young man so decrepit and weak.
“I've not come to harm you,” he said, his voice strained. He was grateful Constantine was not present to see his friendâthe man who at one time had meant so much to Stanâin such poor health. “I've come to save your life.”
The king stilled in his agitated floundering. “Who are you and what do you want? Your voice sounds familiar to me and yet I cannot call your face to mind.”
Roman stepped closer to the couch, the odor of the king's disease causing his stomach to clench. “You are not safe here, my liege,” Roman began. “Raynald has broken your truce with Saladin. There is word that a traitor among your vassals has conspired to make an attempt on your life.”
“Raynald has only defended himself from like attacks,” Baldwin muttered, waving his bandaged hand. “There are many tales of treachery about each of my vassals, likely perpetrated by one another in an effort to steal any power they can before my corpse is even cold. If I believed every rumor on the breeze, I'd have no lords left.”
“It is no rumor, my liege,” Roman insisted. “The very plan was relayed by a Saracen general to a woman from Damascus some months ago.”
“Yes?” Baldwin challenged and reclined once more against his bolsters with a groan. “And who, pray tell, is this vassal who seeks to see the end of me? Or can you not reveal that either?”
Roman swallowed. The king's reaction to the answer Roman was about to relay would reveal whether Roman was likely to leave Kerak alive.
“Lord Glayer Felsteppe.”
Baldwin stilled, and the tremble of roared applause suddenly wound its way up the staircase. “I would know your name.”
“I have brought a written message to you,” was Roman's reply, and he took Constantine's letter out of his tunic and held it toward the king until it touched Baldwin's bandaged hand. The sealed page was wrinkled and soft, scuffed and dirtied from the many miles it had traveled from Melk.
“I can read it not,” Baldwin said bitterly. Then, after a moment's pause, “You claim to be here on a mission of assistance; perhaps you would indulge me?”
No one's eyes save Baldwin's. If you cannot place it in his hands, burn it.
“Of course, my liege,” Roman said quietly.
“Come closer,” the king demanded. “When the light is right . . .” He let the statement trail away. Roman didn't know if the king would recognize him or if it was a bluff on Baldwin's part, but either way, he felt that after he'd read Stan's letter, it wouldn't matter.
Roman knelt by the king's side and slid his finger under the seal of the message. He unfolded the page and cleared his throat, surprised at the prickle in his eyes at Stan's flourishing handwriting. His friends seemed so far away at that moment . . .
“Beloved Baldwin, It is my hope that this missive finds its way into your hands, and that your health is tolerable.
Although it has been many years since last we met, and you have meanwhile set your sword against me, I urge you to consider the warning that has been placed in your ear. Perhaps it is because of me that your life is now endangered; had I succumbed to my imprisonment and torture in Damascus or simply failed to rail at the injustice perpetrated by one of Chastellet's own against you and our brethren, there would not now be one so intent on seeing you dead. You cannot know how it pains my heart that you would think me capable of betraying you. But even so, I cannot allow you to be in such danger, and so I reveal to you the truth of it, in my own hand.
I vow to you on my honor that Glayer Felsteppe is the man who perpetrated the siege on our great fortress of Chastellet. It is he who is to blame for the slaughter of our friends, the destruction of your hold at Jacob's Ford. Baldwin, he has murdered Patrice and little Christian in hopes of drawing me out so that he might at last destroy me. I have only persevered thus far for my friends, good men exiled along with me, their lives also stolen.
Dear Baldwin, though you may consider me beloved no more, I beg of you, heed the warning brought to you at great risk by our friend. Hie yourself and your trusted men as far from Raynald of Chatillon as you can be, and charge not into hasty retaliation at his word while his integrity remains in question. Remember your loyal vassals and keep them close.
It is my fervent prayer that by the time this missive reaches you, God will have shown me mercy and I will at last be dead.
Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam
. . .”
* * *
“Constantine,” Baldwin croaked.
Roman looked up, his own cheeks wet, to see the king had thrown one of his forearms over his eyes. The king turned his head into his elbow and gave what sounded like a gasping sob. Roman rubbed firmly at his face and then, in the next moment, was caught off guard by the hand wrapped around the back of his neck. Baldwin's face was before his, cloudy eyes rolling in their sockets between the slits of gauze, a dagger point dimpling the underside of Roman's chin.
“Who . . . are . . . you?” the king demanded in a raspy whisper.
Roman had to smile at the king's feign and quick reflexes. Constantine did not admire many men, but Roman now better understood why he had respected and loved this young, sick king.
“My name is Roman Berg, my liege,” he at last admitted quietly.
Baldwin's hand on the back of Roman's neck relaxed, even as screams echoed through the corridorâscreams that sounded suspiciously fearful rather than amazed and entertained. The king's dagger, too, retreated, and Baldwin ran his bandaged fingers over Roman's head and shoulders.
“Roman?” Baldwin repeated incredulously. “My good stone master?”
“It is I,” he allowed.
Baldwin threw one arm awkwardly about Roman's shoulders. “Thanks be to God that you are alive.” The king withdrew. “Where is Constantine? Hailsworth? There was a Spaniard who cast his lot with you as well, was there not?”
Roman hesitated. Baldwin had already shown that he was sly. “I fear I cannot say, my liege.”
But the king only nodded. “I understand. It is notâ”
His words were interrupted as the chamber door whooshed open. Roman turned to see Isra rush inside the king's royal apartment and slip quickly behind the doorâ
And Kahn bound into the chamber behind her.
“Who is it?” Baldwin demanded, sitting upright on the couch.
Roman's blood froze in his veins as the tiger started and then crouched, hissing in his direction, his wide nostrils flaring, picking up the scent of the room.
Kahn's front paws were red with blood.
“Be still, my liege,” he warned as calmly as he could.
“Who is it?” the king insisted. “Mine enemies?”
“No,” Roman said as Isra eased the door closed on the sounds of approaching footfalls pounding on the stairs, the shouts of soldiers. She slid the bolt into its home. “It is a woman andâ” he swallowed “âher tiger. The entertainment provided for you.”
“A tiger?” Baldwin repeated. “You cannot mean the beast?”
“I do,” Roman confirmed. “Only be very still,” he urged as Kahn began to take hesitant steps toward Roman, still kneeling at the side of the couch, at a clear disadvantage to the giant animal now rolling toward him, lapping at the air with his great, sniffing inhalations and trailing bloody prints behind him.
“Roman,” Isra said, her back pressed against the door. “Hamid was here, at Kerak. He was at the performance.”
He didn't know what to fear more, the tiger swaggering toward the king of Jerusalem or the words coming from Isra's mouth. He swallowed. “Did he see you?”
“Yes.”
“Did he recognize you?”
She nodded and took a gasping inhalation. “Yes.”
“My liege,” Roman said quietly, “Hamid is the Saracen said to be in league with Felsteppe.
Isra
?” His voice rose on her name as Kahn was now close enough to reach Roman with one long swipe of a striped foreleg.
“Hie, Kahn!” she called, her voice strong even with its warble.
The tiger paused, dropped his head.
“Kahn, come!” she continued. “Hie!”
Baldwin's voice was low, contemplative, behind Roman's head. “I can smell him.”
“He wants a bath, my liege,” Roman admitted. “Isra, are they looking for you?”
As if in answer, a polite yet insistent rapping fell on the king's door, and although it caused Roman to flinch, it had the effect of turning Kahn's attention to the would-be intruders.
“My liege,” an alarmed voice called from beyond the door. “There are criminals about this wing of the castle, and a wild beast. Are you undisturbed?”
Baldwin hesitated for only a moment before calling out, “Damn it all, I am resting! Inform me when they are captured.”
“The lord has bade me search your chamber, my liege,” the voice explained, and the door rattled against the bolt. “There is a tiger that's been loosed on Kerak. He's already killed a man.”
“Baldwin!” another voice called through the door. “Are you well?”
“That's my man,” the king said calmly and then called out, “Send those idiots from the corridor, Judd. And ready the men; we depart Kerak within the hour.”
There was no argument, no questioning, and Roman would have had cause to breathe a sigh of relief . . .
Until Kahn let out an agitated roar.
“Break down the door!” the voice belonging to the man Baldwin had called Judd cried.
The king turned to Roman and said in a raspy rush, “Go, goâthere is little I can do for you here. I must return to Jerusalem if I am to have my full resources. Do what you must to flee.”
“My liege, if they break down the door, the tiger might attack your men. He's . . . he's killed before.”
“Then go off the balcony, man!” Baldwin shouted. “Am I not the only one in this chamber without sight?”
“Isra?” Roman prompted. “Can you climb down?”
“We are two stories up,” Isra insisted. “I do not know if Zeus and Arpâ”
The first blow fell on the door.
“Hie, Kahn!” Isra shouted and marched toward the tiger, cracking the whip and turning the beast toward the closest double door. Once Kahn caught sight of the sky, he quickly padded onto the stone balcony, and Isra disappeared after the tiger.
Roman rose to his feet but paused to grip Baldwin's shoulder. “God's blessing upon you, my liege.”
“Tell Stan,” Baldwin said, grabbing Roman's forearm and keeping him, “forgiâ”
The door burst open and the first of the soldiers flooded the room with great battle cries, their swords drawn.
Roman pulled free of the king and ran toward the open doors of the veranda. In two great strides he was on the balcony, his hands raised over his head, and he launched himself over the low wall, reaching, reaching for the thin branches of the olive tree beyond.
Prickly twigs, wads of leaves, sliced across his palms as his body fell and he tumbled down through the branches. He landed with a shout on his left shoulder in the dirt, feeling the joint slip. For an instant he was in Chastellet's bailey again: the sand in his mouth, the sun in his eyes, the pain in his arm as the arrows fell around him.
Then Zeus was leaning over him, and suddenly others, pulling him to his feet, ducking as they ran together to the shelter of van Groen's wagon.
“Isra!” Roman shouted, looking around.
“With Delilah!” Zeus replied, pushing him up onto the driver's seat. Roman saw the violet-painted wagon already pulling ahead toward the gate, but his attention was disrupted by Zeus's mighty shove, which nearly sent Roman off the other side of the wagon. “Go, go!”