The Falcons of Montabard (10 page)

Strongfist had some broken silver to distribute among the beggars, and he too spared a pitying glance for the old man. 'There but for the grace of God,' he said and crossed himself.

'And yet you still wanted to come back? Do you not fear that one day you will take his place?'

Strongfist looked troubled. 'Of course I fear it,' he said, 'but less than the notion of serving under my brother for the rest of my days. I would rather beg at the Gate of David than coddle a bowl of pottage grudgingly given at Branton.' He shook his head and droplets of sweat flew like salty rain. 'No, for better or worse, I am here to live and die for God's honour.' He nudged his horse forward, easing ahead of Sabin.

Two women passed, giggling to each other behind their hands. Loose silk robes flowed around their bodies and they wore leather sandals upon their feet. Now and again, a glimpse

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of ankle was shockingly exposed. Their veils were fashioned of cobweb-fine fabric edged with pearls. Eastern houris from a lustful dream, Sabin thought, until one of them shot him a look. Instead of the liquid darkness he expected, the woman's eyes were the colour of aquamarines, enhanced by kohl, and her brows bore the glint of northern gold. She nudged her companion and numerous dainty bracelets tinkled on her wrists. The other woman darted a glance at Sabin and her gaze too was light - a watered grey like serpentine. The guards accompanying them had the sand-brown complexions and black moustaches of native men, but there was no mistaking that the women were Frankish and of high rank.

Sabin inclined his head to them, feeling intrigued and amused. The women returned his courtesy and moved on. Perfume, heavy with the scent of rose attar, lingered in the air along with their laughter. Strongfist narrowed his gaze on their progress and tightened his lips.

'Twenty years ago such women would have been whipped through the streets,' he growled.

'That would have been a shame.' Sabin stared in their wake, inhaling the fading, delicious notes of scent.

Strongfist gave him a withering look. 'This is Jerusalem,' he said. 'Not Sodom and Gomorrah.'

Sabin raised one eyebrow to show that he disagreed but was polite enough not to argue. Strongfist wanted things to be exactly as they were when he left, and was obviously suffering from disappointment. As usual, Annais's lids were downcast, but he thought that her expression was wistful rather than shocked. Stewing as she was in that heavy woollen gown, she was probably wishing herself robed in layers of cool silk. He knew that he was.

They rode on past the massive Gate of David and, from broad thoroughfares, entered streets that were dark and vaulted and winding with scarcely room for two beasts to pass together. A turbaned man squeezed his donkey through what seemed an impossible gap between Sabin's mount and the wall, his progress

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marked by the pungent, eye-watering stench of stale fish.

Annais made a small sound and drew her wimple across her lower face. Sabin coughed against his sleeve.

'The fish market's not far away,' Strongfist said, nodding up the narrow street. 'If there's any left at this time of day, it's usually very cheap.'

'I wonder why,' Sabin croaked. The stench had lessened, but a miasma lingered.

Strongfist grinned. 'You'll grow accustomed,' he said, and brought them to another covered thoroughfare. If the stench of decaying fish had sounded one appalling, blaring note, then here the smells were a jangling cacophony. On either side of the street cookstalls jostled cheek by jowl for available space. Portable braziers, ovens and griddles belched out searing heat and odours of hot oil and frying meat heady with spices. A woman wearing a white headcloth was selling piles of the laciest pancakes Sabin had ever seen with some kind of honey syrup drizzled over them. There were cubes of lamb, threaded on olive wood skewers and seared over fierce charcoal. There were vine leaves stuffed with wild rice, almonds and shredded goat meat. Pungent cheeses, figs, oranges, lemons . . . and back to the whiff of fish as a villainous-looking individual fried some specimens in a large oval pan.

'Fresh from Lake Galilee!' he shouted hopefully at Strongfist and his party as they rode past. 'Fresh from the water where Our Lord Jesus Christ walked! A descendant of the fish caught by St Peter himself!' He flipped the fish in the pan and used the utensil to swat a fly that had landed on his sleeve.

' Is he quite sure it's the descendant and not the original?' Sabin asked. Annais made a spluttering sound and her father chuckled.

'They call this place the Street of Bad Cookery,' Strongfist said.

Sabin snorted. 'I would never have guessed.'

'It's unfair really,' Strongfist said judiciously. 'Some of it is very good. The problem is that you take your life in your hands sorting the good from the bad. I ate here frequently when I was

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here before. We would sleep the night in the pilgrim hostel at St Sabas and then come here for food.'

They came to another cookstall, laid out beneath a striped red and yellow awning. There were no spicy dishes on offer here. Instead, a plump woman in a dress of blue linen and matching kerchief was stirring a cauldron of hearty-smelling pottage. Wheaten loaves were piled high on a stand to one side of the cooking fire and strings of blood pudding cascaded from the awning poles, like strange swollen fruit. A man was taking coins and doling out bread and pottage to a steady stream of red-faced, woollen-clad pilgrims.

'Food from home!' the woman raised her voice to cry in French that bore the heavy accent of England. 'Good honest fare that your mother would be proud to serve!' Glancing up at the mounted men, she gave them a winning, red-cheeked smile.

Sabin laughed. 'They know what they're doing,' he said. 'There's nothing more reassuring than finding a little bit of home in the midst of a foreign land.' Not that he personally was longing to taste the pottage. If the thoroughfare had not been so narrow and busy, he would have reined about and gone to sample the lacework pancakes.

Strongfist was already dismounting at the stall, but instead of producing his wooden eating bowl, he advanced to the man and addressed him by name.

'Wulnoth!'

For an instant the man looked taken aback, then he narrowed his eyes, thrust his face forward to examine Edmund's and broke into an ear-to-ear grin. 'Edmund Strongfist! By the Holy Face of God! Lord Fergus said he had written, but I never thought you would come!'

'Have you no faith? I said that one day I would return.' Edmund gestured to the cookstall. 'What are you doing here?'

'It's our livelihood,' Wulnoth said. 'I took a Turkish arrow in the thigh, and couldn't follow Lord Fergus no more, so I turned to this instead . . . and it pays our way. Lord Fergus set us up to start off.'

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'And Lord Fergus himself?' Edmund squeezed to one side of the queue. 'Is he lodged in the city?'

'Yes, sir. He has a house near the Holy Sepulchre. I'll take you if you'll give me a moment.' Poking his head around the awning, he let out a piercing whistle. A young man clad in a cotton tunic trotted over from one of the other stalls. He wore shoes of embroidered leather with turned-up toes and his hair tumbled around his face in artful disarray.

'Matthew, take over for a while,' he said. 'Yasmina doesn't look busy.' Wulnoth turned to Strongfist. 'I have two stalls, one for those who are homesick and another for those daring enough to sample the local fare. Matthew and his sister Yasmina are my helpers.'

The lad dipped his head like a gazelle and bestowed Strongfist a look out of dark, liquid eyes. Strongfist gave the slightest incline in return, his nostrils flaring. He expected to smell rose attar, but the young man's scent was merely of cooking oil. Sabin's gaze wandered across the way and perused with admiration the young woman who was standing behind a counter of sweetmeats piled high like nuggets of gold. Strongfist saw the direction of Sabin's interest and gave him a warning nudge. 'Not now,' he said from the corner of his mouth.

'But certainly later,' Sabin said with a lazy smile before returning his attention to the matter in hand.

With more competence than his slight frame and effeminate manner suggested, Matthew took over ladling out pottage to the queue of pilgrims. Wulnoth removed his grease-spotted apron to guide Strongfist and his group to the house of Fergus MacMalcolm, cousin and former crusading companion of Edmund Strongfist and now castellan and administrator to King Baldwin of Jerusalem. Wulnoth led them to the end of Malquisnet Street and they emerged from the covered walkway and were engulfed by the stench of the fish market in all its putrid, overblown glory.

'You get used to it.' Wulnoth's tone was patronising and cheerful. 'It's not always this bad,' he added helpfully.

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'Someone brought in a cartload of fish this morning that was on the turn and should have been used on the fields or for pig fodder. Idiots on the gate should never have let him through.' He bore left and as the stench began to fade, bore left again and brought them to a flat-roofed house built, as all the others were, of warm, golden stone. Wild geraniums rioted over the surrounding wall behind which could be heard a soothing trickle of water and the low murmur of conversing women. A small brass bell with a tasselled pulley dangled beside a heavy wooden door reinforced with bands of exquisite wrought iron.

Wulnoth signalled his charges to dismount and gave the bell rope three vigorous tugs. The sound jangled loudly and faded away. The sun beat down, its rays so hot that Sabin felt as if fire were licking along his shoulders. Beside him, Annais gasped and swayed in the saddle. He turned and saw that she was biting her lip. Her face was burning scarlet and there were wringing-wet patches of sweat on her gown. He took her arm to steady her and felt the swift throb of her overheated blood through his fingers.

'I am all right,' she said.

It was so obviously a lie that he held on to her. Beyond the wall and the door, soft footfalls approached, a latch drew back, and the door opened on a brown-skinned man wearing a long robe of white cotton and a large crimson turban.

'Safed, I've brought some visitors to my lord,' Wulnoth said. 'An old friend from Lord Fergus's crusading days, together with his family.'

The porter dipped his head and widened the door, revealing a cool, dark corridor with rooms leading off it. 'Be welcome,' he said in clear, slightly accented French. 'If you will enter, I will send for my lord and tell him of your arrival.'

Wulnoth took their mounts. 'I'll bring these round to the stables,' he said.

Annais took two steps towards the oasis of shade and staggered. Her sodden weight slumped against Sabin and he grabbed her. Strongfist turned and, with a concerned oath, took her from the young man.

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'It is the heat,' he said as he lifted Annais in his arms. 'If she was a horse or an ox, I would hurl buckets of water over her to cool her skin.'

'I will send for my lady. She will attend to her,' Safed said. He led them to a room and indicated they should wait. Colourful rugs adorned the thick whitewashed walls and rush mats covered the stone floor. There were several wooden settles pushed against the side of the room with embroidered seat cushions covering the polished wood. On a trestle in the centre of the room stood a large silver bowl piled with citrus fruits.

Barely had Strongfist placed Annais on one of the benches when two women arrived, followed by a maid. One was plump and fair-complexioned and of about Strongfist's age. The other was perhaps ten years younger with raven brows and dark blue eyes subtly outlined with kohl.

The fair one introduced herself as Lady Margaret, wife to Lord Fergus, her companion as Mariamne FitzPeter, and moved swiftly to Annais. She laid a capable hand to the girl's brow and clucked her tongue. 'Come with me, my dear,' she said briskly. 'We'll soon have you feeling better.' She helped Annais to stand and looked at Strongfist. 'Fergus will be here soon. Make yourselves comfortable. Safed will see to your needs.'

Between them, the women drew Annais from the room.

Strongfist gazed around in bemusement. 'Fergus told me in his letter that he had become a man of influence. I do not know why I had expected everything to remain the same,' he said.

Sabin paced the room, studying the rugs, the dyes of which were richer and subtler than anything he had seen before, even at Henry's court: the deep crimson of cultivated roses, the smoky green of sage leaves and a blue that was the hue of cornflowers at dusk. He laid his palm to the weave and discovered that the texture was close and plush.

'Some folk put them on the floor, but my wife's a proud and practical woman, she willna hear of it. She's probably right. I usually have camel shit on ma shoes.' The voice spoke in French but with a heavy Scots accent.

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Sabin turned and found himself facing a short, but robust individual. A dandelion puff of red hair fuzzed out from his scalp and there was a spectacular beard to match. He was clad in a long robe similar to that sported by the native Arabs, but his was cinched at the waist by a belt of green galloon. Red hair sprouted at the embroidered neck opening of the robe and his huge feet were encased in kidskin boots.

'Whether on floor or wall, they are very fine,' Sabin said diplomatically.

'Oh aye, you'll find nothing like them outside o' a Syrian fortress. Captured that one on the Tripoli campaign.' The apparition spoke in the act of flinging his arms wide. His large mouth caverned in an exuberant bellow. 'Edmund! By the saints, man, it took you long enough!' He threw his arms around Strongfist and hugged him ferociously. 'What have you been doing with yourself for a score of years?'

'Paying my family dues . . . raising a child . . . I—'

And a fine laddie he is too!' Their host disengaged from the embrace to slap an enthusiastic arm across Sabin's shoulder. 'Takes after his mother, does he?'

Sabin's lips twitched. 'I am told that in many ways I do.'