The Winter Mantle (59 page)

It was a high price to pay for folly, Simon thought, and he knew that he was in no case to pass judgement, for he had committed enormous follies of his own and was about to compound them. Hefting his shield, gripping his spear, he limped back into the dusty hell of the battle.

Towards noon Simon's shield took an arrow that punched through the limewood and his mail and sliced a flesh wound beneath his ribs. The impact of the barb made him reel, and because he was unbalanced due to his inflamed leg he went down. He heard the thunder of hooves, and from the corner of his eye saw a Turkish soldier swooping in, spear raised to throw. With a final, tremendous effort, Simon twisted his damaged shield back into position across his body. The spear thrummed home, opening up a jagged hole in the wood and pinning him to the ground through mail and gambeson. The move wrenched his leg and he heard himself scream. Red and black spots danced before his eyes and he briefly lost consciousness.

His awareness returned as he heard Sabina's voice urging him to drink and felt the rim of a cup against his lips. She was supporting his shoulders against her kneeling form and her violet-grey eyes were swimming with tears. He took a choking swallow of water and a tremor shook him. 'My shield…' he croaked. 'Have Turstan find my spare one.'

'Of course,' she murmured. 'He has just gone to look for it. You might as well let me tend you while you wait.'

He knew from the soothing tone of her voice that Turstan had done no such thing, but he was half insensible and in too much extremity to do more than mouth a feeble protest. An almighty roar went up from their ranks and he struggled to rise, certain that Quilij Arslan's men had broken through. The sound grew louder, crashing upon him, filling his ears.

'Be still.' Sabina laid a calming hand on his shoulder and pressed him back down. 'And be glad. The second army has come. We are saved.'

Her words joined the noise of cheering in Simon's head and seemed to swell inside his skull until he thought it would split. His awareness drifted and, although his eyes were open, they saw not the pitched tents and the busy women but a tall man with copper hair and a red ring at his throat, watching him, a poised battleaxe in his hand.

No matter how hard Simon had worked to hold his position during the battle of Dorylaeum, it was after the Turks had been defeated that his own real battle began. As well as the flesh wounds he had suffered, his left leg was now badly infected and he was drifting in and out of delirium.

'We cannot bring him with us to Antioch, the road is too difficult,' said Ralf de Gael when he paid a visit to Simon's camp. The army was due to march on the following morning and head towards Antioch, but the way led across harsh terrain where there was no water and the heat was intense. There was no room for stragglers on the march.

Sabina glanced at Simon, who was dozing feverishly in the shade of an open tent. 'Others have already told me, my lord,' she said softly. 'I know that if he takes such a route it will be his last journey. He must go home, whether he wills it or not.' She turned back to De Gael. 'I am willing to stay with him and tend to his wounds along the way. It was my husband's vow to see Jerusalem, not mine. I have no oath to keep.'

De Gael was silent and she wondered if she had said something wrong, for high colour flooded along his narrow cheekbones. With thin, graceful fingers he unfastened the leather pouch from his waist and tossed it to her. 'Here,' he said. 'This will help you on your journey.'

She caught it, and through the soft brown leather felt the solid reassurance of gold bezants. The crusaders who had been capable at the end of the battle two days ago had pursued the fleeing Turks and caught up with their baggage lines. Men who had been beggars at dawn had become as rich as kings by dusk.

'I do not need your charity, De Gael,' Simon croaked from his pallet. He had woken and turned a little to face the Breton, but it was obvious that the move had cost him dear. His complexion was pallid and droplets of sweat dewed his brow.

'I was not giving it to you but to the woman,' De Gael retorted, and walked over to Simon, his gait somewhat stiff from the muscles he had strained in the battle. 'If she is to care for you, then she deserves some reward to keep her loyal.'

Sabina's eyes blazed indignantly at the Breton lord's insinuation.

Simon gave a mirthless laugh. 'You set her worth too cheaply, my lord,' he said hoarsely.

De Gael looked puzzled. 'You mean I should offer her more?'

'I mean that her value lies in more than just gold.' Simon gave Sabina a look that in spite of its fever glaze struck her like an arrow.

'I see,' said the Breton with an arch of his brows.

'No, you do not. You have never seen.' Simon's lips curled in a grimace, but of pain rather than contempt. His eyes squeezed shut.

'My lord, he should be left to rest,' Sabina murmured, and was swiftly at Simon's side. Wringing out a cloth in a bowl of water, she laid it across Simon's brow. Her underlip was caught unconsciously between her teeth and two deep frown lines incised the space between her fine, dark brows.

De Gael nodded. 'I will take your prayers for yourself and Waltheof with mine to Jerusalem,' he said, 'and ask God to be with you on your journey home.' When Simon did not respond, except to gasp, De Gael hesitated then walked away, an air of resignation to his step.

Sabina let out her breath in relief, for his presence had set her on edge. Glancing round to make sure that she did not have an audience, she hitched up her skirt at the hip and tied the purse of gold to the waist belt of her braies.

'I have often heard men say that women keep their greatest treasure under their skirts, but now I have seen it with my own eyes,' Simon murmured weakly. His lids had opened again, but he was barely lucid. She saw the effort it was costing him as pride warred with debilitating pain.

She took the cloth from his brow, refreshed it in the bowl and replaced it. 'You stand need to waste your breath on folly when the journey will take all your strength and endurance,' she scolded. 'You do not have to pretend with me.'

He swallowed, feverish sweat shining on the movement of his throat. 'It is not for your sake that I am pretending,' he said through gritted teeth. 'But for my own.'

Biting her lip, Sabina admitted Father Gilbert to the room in Nicaea where Simon lay. Fever had stripped his flesh to the bone, and she was terrified that he was going to die. In the mews she had dealt with the ailments of hawks, had saved the weakly ones from starvation by hand feeding them, had bathed infected eyes, had dealt with parasites and moult, all without difficulty. But she had been unable to save her children from fever and stiffening sickness and her husband from drowning. Now the man who had been her first sweet love was fading before her eyes, despite all that she could do.

The priest was here to confess Simon and shrive him of his sins lest his time was nigh. Sabina closed the door on the chamber and went into the courtyard behind the house. There was a marble fountain - nothing as grand as the marvels they had seen in Constantinople, but pleasing still. She sat down on a bench beneath a fig tree that offered cool green shade from the heat of the day, but she could not settle, and seconds later rose to pace the circumference of the courtyard, which, for all its pleasantness, felt like a prison. The Norman chirugeon who had attended Simon this morn had declared morosely that there was nothing to do but fetch an axe and chop off the infected leg. Simon had been lucid enough to declare that he would rather die than face such an ordeal. Indeed, he would rather be dead than lose his leg and the chirugeon had been dismissed, muttering darkly that only a priest could serve Simon now.

Sabina had heard that there was a Byzantine physician in the town, but the crusader troops were wary of his remedies and distrusted him as they distrusted all Greeks. It was rumoured that he fraternised with infidels. Aubrey, Simon's master-at-arms, had refused to fetch him, saying that he would not let a foreigner butcher his master. But with nothing left to lose Sabina was growing more inclined by the minute to seek him out.

The sun had shifted a degree on the dial when the priest emerged from Simon's chamber, his expression grave. Sabina saw Aubrey step forward to speak with him, then cross himself at the grave shake of the priest's head.

Sabina recognised the signals for they had been part of the preliminaries when her children were dying. 'I will not let it happen,' she said, clenching her fists in her gown and not caring that her words verged on blasphemy. Some priests said that it was God's will whether a man lived or died, and that caring for the sick should be more by way of comfort than hoping to save. But she was unable to embrace that notion with equanimity.

Father Gilbert left the house and she hurried after him, calling out in the hot, dusty street.

He turned, his silver brows raised in question. 'Daughter?'

Sabina wiped her wet palms on her gown. 'Please,' she said. 'Do you know where I can find the Byzantine physician?'

He considered her thoughtfully. 'If your purpose is to help your lord, I doubt that anyone but God can save him now,' he said. 'He will not agree to the removal of the limb and that is the only thing that might secure his life.'

'Even so.' She made a small gesture serve for the rest.

'Your zeal commends you, daughter, but mayhap it is misplaced.'

Sabina drew herself up. 'Mayhap it is, but I will not know unless I try. I have heard that the Byzantines know much of the ancient lore of healing. If this man cannot help then I have lost nothing. And if he can cure my lord, then it will not have been a lost opportunity.'

'You speak boldly for a woman.' Father Gilbert's tone was more speculative than hostile. He folded his arms within his habit sleeves and considered her out of incisive blue eyes.

'I speak as I must. Lord Simon de Senlis was charitable to me beyond measure in Brindisi. Now loyalty binds me to do what I can for him in return.'

The priest nodded. 'You are not then his mistress,' he said drily.

'Indeed not!' Indignation burned Sabina's face. 'I am a widow of respectable reputation!' The words rang facetiously in her own ears. How respectable her reputation would be by the time she arrived home was open to debate.

'Then your loyalty towards this man does you great credit,' the priest said, inclining his tonsured head. 'I am acquainted with the house of the Byzantine physician and I will take you there.' He raised a forefinger, cutting off her words of gratitude. 'I will warn you that his services do not come cheaply and that he has a contempt for us at least as great as the contempt that we harbour for his kind.'

'I have enough to pay for his services,' Sabina responded, 'and I care not for his nature providing only thai he is a competent doctor.'

The priest shrugged. 'That is open to debate, daughter, and a risk you take.' He began to walk, his sandalled feet sending out puffs of dust. Bowing her head, as was modest in the presence of a priest, Sabina accompanied him through the winding streets of Nicaea until they came to an arched alleyway with dwellings either side, their doors brightly painted and their stone walls fortress-thick. Dark-eyed black-haired children played a ball game in the narrow street. A woman was beating a woven mat out of an upstairs window and a small shower of dust and reed fragments shimmied to the ground. Disturbed from its basking by the debris, a brown lizard shot up the wall and disappeared into a dark crevice.