Shield of Three Lions (55 page)

Enoch noticed it too. “What say you that we cleanse our beasts and ourselves in the sea? Mayhap we can wash off the day.”

“Like Pontius Pilate.” I had to get away from the mutilated heap, so reminiscent of Wanthwaite, albeit on a larger scale. Yet my horror was the same.

Quickly we headed down the slope toward the Mediterranean, pushed by the gale at our backs.

WE WADED OUR HORSES INTO THE shallows and gazed out on the sullen leaden swells beyond. The water was turbid from roiled sand, sibilant under the steady howl of the wind.

Enoch dismounted, dropped his clothes and held Thistle for me.

“You go ahead. I’ll join you in a minute,” I said.

Sick at heart, I watched him struggle through the surf and plunge into the sea. For a brief moment, I envied his strength and freedom. He might be a Scot, but he was a handsome specimen without his distorting Scottish kilts and he could strip naked without worry. In former dips, I’d always kept my clothes on, waded discreetly so that the weight of my treasure would not suck me under. Now I felt besmirched in every pore by both sand and horror, felt I must immerse myself in a total baptism in order to be fresh again. I
guided Thistle to the protection of a huge boulder where I removed my treasure belt and false prick; I quickly weighted them with a heavy stone and then, wearing only my light tunic, ran to the sea.

After the first delicious dive, I stayed far under, scraping along the bottom like a ray Above me in the sand-filtered light, I could see Enoch’s arms and legs moving in slow graceful arcs. Then I, too, surfaced, half-floating, half-swimming in desultory movements as I tried to order my thoughts. At the center was King Richard, master of lightning transformations from angry tyrant to seductive lover, but never before had I seen such a complete change. Passion turned in an instant to murder. I knew he would explain the deaths as a political act, but I’d heard him often praise these emirs as men of exceptional courage and honor who’d voluntarily offered themselves as surety for Saladin’s word. Political or not, Richard knew many of them personally, and liked them.
Enfants perdus
, lost children, expendable lives. I wanted no part of such thinking. When human life can be sacrificed so casually, who is safe?

The Acre massacre must be a stain on the Crusade, whatever the ultimate outcome. And a stain on King Richard forever.

“Cum, Alex, time to leave!” Enoch’s glistening figure waved to me from the beach. Too bad he was about to transform himself back into a Scot, I thought again, for in his naked state he could rival any man alive.

I heard a distant clang of bells, took one more long dive, and waded ashore, shading my eyes against the bladed blowing sand.

When I rounded the boulder, I found Enoch holding something in his hands.

“Be this your treasure belt, bairn?” he asked.

Benedicite
—how could I deny it and still get it back?

“Uh—aye. It makes me too heavy to swim.”

He raised and lowered it judiciously, weighing it, counting the coins if I knew him. “Aye, ye mun carry a fortune between yer legs.” He laughed heartily at his bad joke. “How much do ye figure?”

“I never counted,” I lied, “but it’s mostly deniers.”

“Sum gold though?” His gimlet eyes glinted greedily.

“The important thing is that it also contains my parents’ relics,” I snapped. “Give it to me, please. Soothly I feel naked without it.”

“Aye, I recall in Messina hoo ye cried out that ye couldna take it off or yer parents would go straight to brimstone.” He held it out, but when I reached, retracted it again. “What be this woodly string of sticks?”

“String of sticks?” I gazed on the jointed willows as if I’d never seen them before. Indeed, I tried to pretend to myself that I hadn’t, hoping that I could imagine some new function for them.

“Aye, they mun poke ye something fierce yif ye wear them close to yer balls.” He drew the contraption closer. “Waesucks, it stinks.”

I laughed giddily. “Aye, ’tis a bit besmottered, but …”
But what
? I stretched my dull brain. “But it protects me,” I ended feebly.

He was turning the false penis this way and that. What did it look like to him? “I doona see how old willows can protect ye.”

“From—horses!” I said, as if inspired.

“
Horses?
” His face was a study of disbelief.

“Well, of course, such a—er—stick wouldn’t help everyone, but you see I’m different.”

“Different how?” His eyes involuntarily fell to my crotch where my wet tunic clung close and I quickly put one leg forward to obscure the outline.

I could have bit off my stupid tongue for using the word
different
, but there was no help for it now. “That is, I suffered an injury on a particular part of my—er—prick, and it needs protection.”

“When did this hap?”

“Oh, a long time ago!” I sang out. “My horse Justice, back at Wanthwaite—er—bit me.”

“
A horse bit yer terse
!” His eyes widened.

“Not exactly bit—I mean kicked.” I felt I would swoon. “Kicked so hard that it felt like a bite, if you take my meaning.”

The Scot now stared at me, more intrigued by my words than my false member. I looked back with a vacuous brightness, trying to read the comprehension or lack of it in his eyes. Again he put one hand on the willows, put his other below the belt, and tried to balance
them in what I saw must be the position they rode between my legs. The willows rose in a close proximation of a prick, or so it seemed to me. Enoch narrowed his eyes, turned the whole in profile, looked back at me with the first stir of real suspicion.

“As I understand it, these willows mun slip o’er yer terse. Lat me see how ye wear it.” He finally handed me my poor disguise.

“That’s absurd,” I said firmly. “No prick could squeeze inside that narrow pipe as you well know. It once served to hold off horses, as I said, but it’s grown too brittle by far.” Quickly I broke the willows off and threw it toward the sea where,
Deo gratias
, the wind carried it into the surf. Then, using the same manner I’d done on Dere Street to fool Magnus Barefoot, I reached up from under the hem of my tunic and fastened the belt in place, protected in the act by my garment.

Enoch was now roused. “Alex, in almost three years, I’ve ne’er seen ye wi’out yer clothes. Why is that? Be there somewhat wrong wi’ yer parts?”

“If you haven’t seen me, you haven’t looked,” I argued back. “I’ve been without my garments many times.”

“No, ye have nocht!” Amazement shone in his face. “I doona knaw quhat ye look like!”

And he lunged toward my tunic.

I spun away terrified!

He stumbled after me, not sure but close to sure that something was amiss. Bewildered blue eyes raked me from head to foot, hands reached to catch any part of me. We feinted in grotesque circles as I tried to think of a way out.

“Ye’re nocht
Alex
!” he cried.

“Alex! Is that you?” Sir Roger’s voice sounded from the dusty swirls, almost upon us. Then his welcome figure loomed above.

“Sir Roger!” I screeched in relief. “Are you going to the king’s pavilion?”

“Yes, we’re late.”

“I’ll go with you!”

I was already on Thistle and spurred my horse to a rear to avoid Enoch’s reaching hands.

I thundered into the sand-screen as fast as I could.

“Wait!” Sir Roger called.

“Alex, wait!” Enoch echoed. “Be ye a …?”

But I was too far away to hear the last word.

SIR ROGER AND I WORKED FEVERISHLY to make up for the fact we were late, and we finished setting up the goblets just as the king’s fanfare announced his arrival in camp. I was grateful for the hard tasks which took my mind off the emirs, off Enoch, off the coming night of love.
Benedicite
, I hoped I would never live through such a day again.

The king was accompanied by great lords, already in heated discussion about the massacre.

“Saladin will go down in infamy for his dastardly act today.”

Saladin
? I looked in amazement at the speaker, none other than the temperate Champagne.

“Yes, ’tis difficult to comprehend the Infidel mind. No Christian king would murder the cream of his own army. And we thought he was a chivalrous leader!”

The king, I saw, was halfway in his transformation from Death to Great Monarch. His mouth was still fretted by bitterness, his eyes still heavy, his speech lugubrious. “’Tis not Saladin, ’tis Philip who is at fault,” he announced.

“How so, Your Majesty?”

“Once France defected, the peace terms no longer had to be honored. Obviously we could not march the emirs in our ranks to Ascalon; just as obviously, we no longer have sufficient army to guard them in Acre. The strategy was to hold us in Acre until Saladin could raise the eight hundred thousand troops he’s called.” He threw his heavy cape on the bed and sat on his throne.

Strategy, always strategy. The question was, did he enjoy the act of murder? This afternoon I’d thought he did. If so, I would soon be copulating with Death. I handed him a goblet of wine.

“I daresay the pope will approve,” a bishop opined uneasily, “since the purpose was holy.”

Richard turned cynical eyes. “If we take Jerusalem, he will approve.”

“You’re absolutely right, Your Majesty,” the bishop agreed hastily. “The pope has great faith in you.”

Richards lips twitched; then he turned to his advisers. “Look you, we agreed in conference on this awesome act. I suggest that we put it behind us now and turn our attention to the more pressing matter of our march to Ascalon. If I am right about Saladin’s recruitment, we face formidable odds on the narrow stretch along the sea. We’ll go in triple file, mounted knights closest to the sea and our following ships. Here is the map …”

Well, these were momentous decisions, I knew, but soothly of little interest to me. The Scot’s unfinished question hurled at my back occupied all my mind. If Enoch knew I was female—and I was sure he did, if not now, then within the next few hours as he thought things through—then my whole situation was changed. He would see and grab his advantage. Which meant that he would leave for Wanthwaite
at once
, knowing that I could not dispute his male sovereignty. He would bring an army, challenge Sir Roland to the ordeal of single combat, the absolutely legal way of attaching my estate.

What could I do?

Enlist the king’s help. ’Twas unfortunate that I had to ask on the heels of his own disasters, but there was no other way. So as he plotted how to defeat Saladin, I pondered how I might outwit the Scot.

I had arrived at my own strategy long before the king finished planning his, and I thought the parley would go on until dawn. Finally, however, close upon midnight, the first lord rose to take his leave. Soon others followed and in a short time Sir Roger and I were busily cleaning the pavilion, laying out the king’s sheets and robe.

Then Sir Roger and the king carefully rolled the maps and placed them in a chest. Two of the wax lanterns had been extinguished and the one that was left cast an eerie light across the swelling canvas which rose and fell in the wind like a great heart.

The king accompanied Sir Roger to the exit of the pavilion where they stood talking earnestly for a few moments. Then the secretary untied the flaps and bent low into the wind; before the king could close the opening, the wax lantern flickered out and we were in darkness.

“God’s feet, help me tie the flap, Alex!”

I groped my way across the inky space, hit the side of the tent and edged to where the king stood. He tied the upper part, while I sat on the ground and tied the lower. Then I rose and he grasped my shoulder.

“Where’s the ember?” he asked. “’Tis said that darkness is a friend to love, but I believe we need a
little
light.”

“One of the bishops told Sir Roger to remove it, Your Highness. He was afraid of fire in this gale.”

“A presumptuous prelate, I might have guessed. Well, we shall be night partners then.” He laughed and led me to his bed.

The simultaneous loss of human voices and light isolated us. I heard anew the fierce winds wailing about us, an anguished sobbing chorus of tortured souls, calling in the darkness.

I thought of the emirs.

“What’s wrong, love? Why that frisson?”

“Nothing, Your Highness.”

“Call me Richard. Night is a great leveler.” Again the rich laugh.

Death is the great leveler, I thought, and I wished we had light. True, the king had diminished to a disembodied voice, a single hand, but he was emblazoned in my mind’s eye as a skull-like grinning face riding past the pile of dead hostages.

“Ah, there we are.” He sank onto the edge of the bed. “I don’t suppose you’re clever enough to get us a cup of wine in this pitch.”

“I’ll try.”

I made my way along the bed, from the bed to the partition where the wine chest stood. I took a goblet and a flask, thinking it would be safer to pour after I reached the king. When I groped my way back, I touched a muscular leg.

The king was naked.

“None for you? We’ll share a loving cup.”

He took the flask and poured, sipped and pushed the goblet toward me, spilling a little.

“If you were in my state, wine stains wouldn’t matter. Let’s make you comfortable.”

His hands groped at my neck laces.

“I’ll do it, Your—Richard.” I stepped away, took off everything except my tunic which was still slightly damp at the edges. ’Twas as far as I could force myself to go.

“Where are you? Ah, there. I’ve poured more wine and you must drink it, as a good omen.”

I sipped it as slowly as I dared. Gradually I could see the faint pale outlines of the silk fenestrations. Richard was a ghostly mass next to me.

But if ’twas hard to see, the sound was terrifying. Canvas cracked like sails, metal objects outside crashed, rolled, thumped. And that mournful keening howl. We were sailing through a pitching universe, enclosed only in a flapping charnel tent.

“You’re still dressed!”

“Just my tunic,” I stammered.

“Are you afraid?” His whisper made me start, for ’twas directly in my ear.