Beasts of the Seventh Crusade (The Crusades Book 4) (16 page)

"I'm not a horseman," he said.

"What happened?"

"My first one broke its leg; the second broke its back. My commander, Trunk, said I was too heavy or too clumsy, and that I would have to purchase my own if I wanted another. And I don't. Horses are foul-tempered, angry brutes that require too much cleaning, and I prefer to walk. At least I can control where my own legs go," Artois said. Francois burst into laughter at Artois' petulant tone, like a spoiled child who kept cutting himself while playing with his father's sword.

They began the long walk back to the town. Francois felt good with his brother by his side, and not just because of the protection. He was home with Artois; he was in a place that suddenly made sense again.

"Have you spoken with father or Christof?" Francois asked.

"I heard through a friend that knows Lieutenant Dimon. Do you remember him?" Francois nodded. "He said they were put with the infantry divisions that are taking turns coming to shore. I don't imagine we'll see those two again until Egypt. I don't know when I'll see you again, either."

"How is the king?" Olivia blurted out. She had been wondering ever since she saw Artois and knew he was a part of that group. A part of her hoped Louis was suffering in her absence, brooding that one of his best bedmates had stopped begging at his palace doors, beseeching his guards for access.

"I do not engage him personally, but he is bothered. Forget the good omens that the priests speak of, forget the numbers that we have on this crusade. The Egyptian Ayyubid Army is fierce, and their warriors are trained to hate our kind from the moment they take a breath. They will defend their homeland vigorously, and Louis knows this, though he feigns courage."

It was not the answer Olivia was looking for, but she was satisfied that Louis was not entirely happy. She wanted to ask if other girls were gracing his sheets at night, but she already knew they were. Besides, she couldn't ask a question like that in front of Francois.

They bade Artois farewell at the edge of the town, and the big man walked alone toward the estate, the darkness enveloping him almost immediately.
It was amazing,
Francois thought,
that they were brothers.
His parting words were, "If you hear from father, tell him I think of him often and hope to see him soon."

"And the same for me, if you see him," Artois had replied.

Something was not right with Christof, Raul knew. His brother was usually boisterous, confident around rough men, and vocal. But the longer they idled at Cyprus, going to and from the shore, bored, Christof began acting strangely. He was quiet, avoided eye contact. Raul knew his brother, or he thought he did.

"What troubles you, Christof? We will be at war soon, and your blade will be sated by the blood of hundreds, nay thousands, of Muslim dogs. You should be happy."

"I am content," Christof said, staring at his feet. They were back on their ship after three days on Cyprus, and Raul thought Christof was happier on the ship than on land.

"You are not well, should we see the doctors?"

"I am fine!"

"Yelling that you are fine does not make it true, brother. You can't scare me like these little soldier boys who are two years removed from their mother's tit."

Christof snorted and brushed past Raul, moving toward the ladder that led to the deck. Raul waited a moment, and followed. The deck was weather-beaten and cold. Raul watched Christof amble along, keeping one hand on the rail and the other on his hip, presumably to keep his sword from impaling him if he slipped. Raul followed him from a distance, tasting the snot that ran from his nose and froze on his upper lip. The spring was not far off, and winter was at its worst. Spit froze before it struck the ground. Fingers, toes, ears, and noses were perpetually numb. If a man fell overboard, he was as good as dead; if not from the cold water, then from the inevitable fever and breathing sickness that followed. It was a hard time to be aboard a ship, and Raul prayed his sons were faring better than he.

Christof rounded the prow of the ship and was briefly out of Raul's view. The wind picked up, and Raul closed his eyes and ducked his head. He was going to figure out what was wrong with his brother. There were rumors about Christof and things he did during his career as a slaver. He was said to have an affinity for male servants, and there were the rumors of what happened to that little boy when they were teenagers . . . but Raul couldn't believe Christof was capable of such atrocities. Sadly, if Christof had ever confided in anyone, it was not Raul.

Christof stooped and pulled on a rope, and a trapdoor in the deck opened. He got on his knees, gingerly, Raul noticed, and turned to enter the hole. When he turned, he looked directly at Raul. His eyes went from surprise to shock and anger in a heartbeat.

"Are you following me?" Christof growled.

"No," Raul answered, his words carrying on the cold breeze.

"Then what are you doing?"

"I might ask you the same thing."

Christof got up and closed the trapdoor. He looked at his brother with an expression that Raul had not seen in years; hatred. It was an expression that a man might adopt if he were denied sex, or riches, or both.

"Do you have something you want to ask me?"

"No."

Christof bared his teeth and shouldered past Raul, back the way he had come. Raul watched him go, perplexed. Christof was likely going back to their cabin, which was adjacent to the soldiers they instructed and offered little in the way of entertainment or stimulation. Raul began to follow him, but a creak in the floorboards of the deck stopped him. He looked down and saw eyes, big and brown, staring up at him. He didn't know there was a space under this part of the deck; he thought it was solid, a counterweight of reinforced wood to the cargo and soldiers on the other side of the ship. That would have made sense, to prevent the ship from capsizing during a storm. Just as quick as the eyes were there, they were gone. Raul's gaze drifted to the trapdoor that Christof had opened, but he couldn't bring himself to investigate the hole. For some reason, he didn't want to know what was down there.

Chapter Eighteen

THE FIRST HINTS OF SPRING were like honey on the tongue of a dying man. To Francois, the changeover from winter to spring seemed to happen overnight. He woke up on the makeshift medical ship, Olivia next to him, breathing softly, eyes closed. He donned his heavy, wool robe and went to the deck, instinctively holding the rail lest he slip on the ice.

The ice cracked beneath his soft, leather boots and the cold water soaked through. Francois cursed, but then felt the sun on his face, its warmth a thing of resurrection, no longer a cold light that only helped one see the ice more clearly. He heard sailors chatting on the wharf, and a few of them were wearing short-sleeve tunics, their bare chests exposed to the morning air. Birds sang over the water, flying in intricate formations, playful. Winter had finally eased its cold grip over Europe and the Mediterranean.

King Louis did not want to waste a single day. His senior men assembled that morning outside Henry the Fat's estate, standing on hard soil that would become soft in the coming months, where grass and wildflowers would grow and hunters would take rabbits and deer for evening meals. There were 200 men in Louis' formation, and he stood in front of them, letting his smile and confidence warm their hearts. Behind Louis, his bodyguards stood ramrod straight, looking dangerous and edgy as always.

"Men, today we sail for Egypt! For victory! For Christendom!"

The soldiers dutifully cheered. They were not under any delusions that the invasion of Egypt was about Christendom or Jesus or Allah or anything like that. This war was about power and land, wealth and status. But if King Louis needed to say the politically correct lines to satisfy the numerous ambassadors and scribes, foreign and domestic, who were present, who were they to criticize?

"Our first target is the city known as Damietta, which was successfully captured by the Fifth Crusade, as many of you know. But the Fifth Crusade was a failure! They did not press on; they did not persevere and capture Cairo, the center of the evil that is the Ayyubid Empire. And that is our goal, men. I will accept nothing less than total destruction of the Ayyubids!"

The soldiers cheered again. Louis was playing to their bloodthirstiness, to the savage pleasure that they would take in killing their enemies and owning their possessions. It was the tone that he wanted to be passed down to the lowest soldiers, who knew that they could keep whatever they captured; they could legally possess whatever they had the strength to acquire.

The fleet wasted no time in casting off from Cyprus. Louis paid the proper respects to the ambassadors from Italy, England, Constantinople, and the host nation, Cyprus. The stop had been a remarkable success. Louis had forged trade treaties and alliances that would last generations, provided he could wage a successful crusade in Egypt.

Christof was like his old self again once the fleet got moving. Raul was happy to attribute Christof's previous uneasiness to impatience, the strange sensation that older men feel when they know they have little time left on the Earth, and that they must make every moment count. When the fleet was sailing, all thirty-six ships cutting across the southern Mediterranean, ready to bring fire and judgment and death down on the Ayyubids, Christof was more than content. He was elated.

"They say there are mystics in Egypt! I have never had Egyptian slaves, but imagine what a rich, French family would pay for a dark-skinned foreigner who can divine the future? If I can get my hands on a real desert shaman, this whole venture will have been worth it," Christof said. Raul smiled and nodded. They were at the prow of the ship, the horizon big and blue.

"I can't believe Artois is still with the king's bodyguard, I thought he would have brawled his way out of that lofty position months ago," Raul said. Speaking about his sons was one of the few things that he and Christof could talk easily about, killing hours as they paralleled the young men to themselves.

"I never would have lasted a week, guarding that prissed-up king."

"Aye."

"What about Francois? Ha! Tending wounds and mixing potions? That boy has a hunter's instinct and a general's intelligence. He would do better as a scoutmaster, or a cavalry captain."

"He will make a fine surgeon," Raul responded.

"Aye."

Raul left Christof to stare at the open ocean, and he passed over the spot with the trapdoor. He had discovered it was where Makel, the urchin, lived and slept. Raul concluded it was Makel's eyes he saw back on the coast of Cyprus. He wasn't completely sure why Christof was going to see the boy, but he assumed it was because Makel was a dark-skinned foreigner, and Christof was interested in international slaving. The alternative, the idea that Christof had an appetite for the flesh of young boys, was too distasteful to even think about. Raul didn't know everything about his brother, but he thought he knew at least that much.

Olivia was permitted to ride on the ship with Francois and the rest of the medical staff. She had become something of an angel to sick men, who responded to her ministrations enthusiastically. In truth, men seemed to get better quicker when they were in her care, and Francois was sure that it was a spiritual belief, a connection with their own mothers, or a renewed positivity in life and the belief in beauty, that sped along their recoveries. But as many men as Olivia helped, that many more came in, sometimes malingering, sometimes with lustful intentions.

"And when did your stomach start hurting?" Francois asked the young soldier. He was a German boy, less than twenty years, and was complaining of knots of pain in his stomach.

"Two days ago."

"Have you been eating the same rations as your comrades?"

"Yes."

"Have you been drinking seawater?"

"No."

"Just lay here and rest," Francois said, leaving the young German on the cot below decks. He went to the captain's cabin, a dry, clean dwelling that sat to the rear of the prow of the ship, elevated enough so that the captain could see in every direction at all times. When Francois got there, the captain was in bed, Olivia by his side, ladling tea mixed with honey into his mouth. The captain's arms were dangling off his bed, and his fingers were grazing Olivia's calf.

"Olivia? A moment?" Francois asked. Olivia turned and smiled, her bright white teeth and gorgeous eyes reminding Francois of why he had loved her since Troyes, of why he forgave her the iniquities with King Louis, and the iniquities he did not have the courage to ask about.

Outside, he asked her directly, "Could you feel the captain's hand on your leg?"

"What?"

"Just now, when I walked in, his fingers were touching your leg, and moving up, unless the listing of the ship has addled my sense of direction."

"I felt nothing; I was concentrating on the poor man's condition."

"How is he?"

"Well, his fever is gone and his appetite is back. He says he still feels ill, though, and says that I remind him of his wife back in Paris . . . oh, oh I see." Sudden realization dawned on Olivia's face, and she spun to reenter the cabin. Francois caught her elbow before she could go inside.

"The captain is not the only one. Every man on this crusade wants the warmth and comfort of a woman, including me. I only want you to be aware."

"I am . . . now."

"Good, let me talk to the captain. There is a German boy below decks who is complaining of a mysterious stomach pain, though I can't identify a cause. I fear he may be here to see you as well. Him, you may berate and rebuke to your heart's content. As for the captain, best let me handle that."

Olivia nodded and kissed Francois, her soft lips cool against his own. They shared a moment of eye contact more intimate than the lovemaking they shared each night. To him, her skin was so clear, so perfect. He did not know if she had always been so beautiful, or if it was simply that he hadn't seen another woman in months. Clearing her from his thoughts, Francois entered the captain's cabin.