The Falcons of Montabard (14 page)

He wondered how Strongfist was going to cope with a wife who painted her face and frequented bathhouses. Not well, he suspected, and he did not want to exacerbate the situation by the remotest hint of familiarity in her presence. Matching his own stately pace to hers, he held his body rigid and did not respond when she leaned slightly towards him.

'I like Jerusalem,' she said. 'My former husband only visited when forced, which was a great pity . . . God rest his soul.' She murmured the words gently and lowered her lids, but Sabin received the impression that the gesture was for his benefit and less than genuine. He asked her politely about the estates that her husband had managed.

Mariamne flashed him a look in which he saw anger, amusement and what he thought was a hint of gratification. 'You want to know about my lands?' she asked. 'That is wise of you, but not original. You tread a path well worn in Outremer.'

'My lady?'

She shook her head. 'And why should you be any different? I will tell you what you want to hear. My lands are fertile. They grow vines and olives, oranges in abundance, pomegranates, figs and fields of wheat. One of the villages has a glass foundry and we make perfume vessels to sell in Jerusalem and Antioch and beakers for wine and sherbet. We breed horses famed for their speed and endurance, and hounds that are reckoned to be the swiftest and bravest in all Outremer.' She spoke in a colourless tone, as if repeating a boring list by rote.

Sabin recognised her malaise. He had encountered a surfeit of such women while attending on King Henry. Usually they

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were brought to court by their baronial fathers and husbands, and for many it was the pinnacle of their lives. The younger ones would twitter like little finches hung up in a sunlit window. He and the other squires and knights would be the recipients of batted eyelashes and blushing giggles. Women more jaded and experienced would watch and plan and wait their moment with sultry hunger. Not for them a swift fondle in the screen passage or an assignation behind the stable block. Their demands were met in taverns such as the one in Barfleur where he had taken Lora, in bathhouses, and feather beds while husbands were away hunting. Back in England, Sabin would have enjoyed playing the game. Older, experienced women had a great deal to recommend them, but since he wanted to live, Mariamne FitzPeter, shaved or not, was out of bounds.

'You are silent,' she said, looking at him thoughtfully. 'Has my tally bored you, or is it not enough? Do you want more?' The last question was suggestive. The hair rose at Sabin's nape and at the same time he felt an involuntary surge of heat at his crotch.

'My lady, you could never bore me,' he said with a courtier's gallantry. The words were formal and meaningless and he made sure that they contained not the slightest nuance of ambiguity. With relief, he turned the corner into David Street. Safed was lighting the lamps outside Fergus's dwelling and he opened the strong oak door and bowed Sabin and Mariamne through to the courtyard.

The others were seated on benches around the fountain, drinking sherbet and discussing their visit to the palace. Strongfist's laugh rang out and it was plain to see that he was in an excellent mood. Mariamne's expression stiffened and she tightened her grip on Sabin's arm. Turning, Strongfist's eyes lit on the couple. His smile brightened for a moment like a freshly fed fire then grew tense at the corners as his gaze travelled to their linked arms.

'Where did you go?' he asked Sabin brusquely.

Bowing to Mariamne, Sabin managed to extricate himself

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from her grasp and immediately set about putting distance between them. 'To pray at the tomb of the Holy Sepulchre,' he said. 'To light candles for the soul of my father and for others in my past who are still with me now.'

'You should have told me,' Strongfist growled. 'I was wondering what had happened to you.'

'I was too busy freeing myself from the grasp of the Queen's ladies,' Sabin said wryly. 'And I could see that you had your own business to conduct without interruption from me. Besides, I do not need to run to you with every small detail of my life. If I am discreet, it should not worry you.'

'Well, you do not smell very discreet at the moment,' Strongfist grumbled. 'You stink like the inside of a whore's coffer! I do not suppose for one minute that you got like that through prayer.' His gaze flickered suspiciously between Sabin and Mariamne.

Sabin sniffed his armpit, and was greeted by an aroma of fresh linen and sandal wood. There was also an underlying whiff of incense from his audience with God. 'No,' he said cheerfully, 'I went to a bathhouse afterwards. You have some strange ideas about the coffers of whores.'

Strongfist scowled. 'That clever tongue of yours is so sharp that one day you are going to cut yourself.'

Mariamne took the sherbet offered to her by an attendant. 'I was in the women's bathhouses by St Mary Latina and I met Messire Sabin on his way out,' she murmured to Strongfist. I hope you do not think the same of me.'

Strongfist looked as if he might choke. 'Of course not,' he said in a congested voice. 'But is visiting a bathhouse wise?'

She looked scornfully amused. 'Whyever should it not be?'

Strongfist's complexion turned purple. 'I should think that was obvious.'

'Och, man, the establishments here are nae like the stews back home,' Fergus declared, thumping his friend on the shoulder. 'It's true that the city has its brothels like any other, but most of the bigger bathhouses are respectable. The Queen

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herself is a patron, and the Patriarch too. I go mysel' now and again. You'll get used to it. The Romans used to bathe all the time.'

'The Romans are dead,' Strongfist retorted, but his colour lightened to a flushed red and from somewhere he found the semblance if not the truth of a smile. 'You must forgive me if I take time to learn the customs that have grown up in my absence.'

'No forgiving to do,' Fergus said brusquely. 'I'll take you on the morrow so that you can see for yourself. You don't have to be rubbed with scented oils, but most men do. The women prefer a man freshly clean from bathing rather than steeped in a week's worth of sweat.' He gave Strongfist a knowing nudge to which the latter responded with an embarrassed shrug. 'Men meet up to discuss their business in such places, and women go there to gossip. It is a part of ordinary life, nothing to get your hose in a tangle about.' He turned to Sabin with a gleam in his eye. 'I suppose they offered to shave you as bald as a eunuch's pate.'

Sabin grinned. 'I didn't let the attendant anywhere below my neck with that razor . . . much as he would have liked.' The horrified expression on Strongfist's face almost made him splutter. Turning his back while he composed his mirth, Sabin went to sit on the edge of the fountain and trailed his hand in the water. He was aware of Annais standing in the lantern-lit shadows, her gaze as severe as a mother superior's. He felt a niggle of irritation, for he had done nothing wrong. Perhaps it was a case of giving a dog a bad name and hanging him. Perhaps, with his reputation for poaching on other men's land, she thought the worst of the way he had spent his afternoon. Well and good. The way he intended to spend his evening would compound her opinion.

Obviously feeling that some gentleness was needed in the atmosphere, Lady Margaret requested that Annais fetch her harp and play for them. While she was gone on her errand, Sabin had a quiet word with Fergus. The Scotsman laughed

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and raised his brows, but murmured an address in Sabin's ear. 'I'm told that Heloise and Dorcas are the ones to ask for,' he said in a low voice, darting a glance at his wife to make sure she was out of earshot. 'Either of them could suck the end off a spear, if you take my meaning.'

Sabin did. He collected his cloak, made sure that his sword was secure at his hip, transferred his money pouch to around his neck, and headed for the door. Returning with her harp, Annais gave him a startled look as he squeezed past her in the corridor.

He said nothing, even though the curiosity in her gaze demanded a response. She was too well bred to ask him directly where he was going and he had no intention of telling her.

It was late when he returned, his way lit by a hired lantern-bearer and the light of a halfpenny moon. His steps were steady, for he had consumed no more than two cups of wine at the House of the Oasis. Excellent though it had been, only a fool drank to a point where he was unable to experience the pleasure for which he had paid, or defend himself on the road home.

Safed opened the door even before he could jangle the bell, then, having replaced the bolt behind Sabin, padded quietly back to his pallet in one of the rooms off the courtyard. Sabin stood for a moment gaining his bearings by the glow of the oil lamp left burning on the marble bench in the hall. The sound of the fountain trickling came quietly to him and another noise, blending with the splash of water, so that at first he was unsure if his ears were deceiving him. They were not. It was definitely the bittersweet strains of a harp parting the night air. He followed the sound into the courtyard, his footsteps soft and cautious.

Annais was seated on the fountain seat where he had briefly sat earlier. Her harp was on her lap and her head was bent over the movement of her fingers on the strings. The notes were softer than the breeze stirring the leaves of the fig trees and they had a melancholic air that reminded him of misty autumn

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days in England and Normandy. Like the strands of a sparkling spider-web, the music captured him and held him fast.

Annais raised her head and saw him listening, and captivated. Her fingers stilled on the strings.

'It is very late,' he said. 'You must have been playing for a long time.'

'I could not sleep and I did not want to stay in my room,' she said.

A room that she shared with Mariamne FitzPeter. Although she did not mention the fact, he sensed her tension and knew its reason.

He came to the fountain, cupped his hands to the water and drank a mouthful.

'If you did not before, then now you truly do smell like a whore's coffer,' she said. 'I know where you went. Mariamne overheard Fergus telling you, and she was not best pleased.'

Sabin shrugged. 'It is no concern of hers,' he said indifferently and sat on the other end of the stone bench, leaving the width of two people between them.

'Is it not?' Challenge rang in her voice.

'No,' he said, 'nor of anyone else's.' He studied the set of her jaw and the angry glint in her eyes. 'You may have seen us returning together from the baths, but it was no more than coincidence.'

Annais looked neither mollified nor convinced. 'My father is going to make a marriage contract with her,' she said, and her upper lip curled a fraction, revealing what she thought of the prospect. 'He desires her, I can see he does, but she has no interest in him and she dislikes me.'

Sabin rubbed his chin and eyed her shrewdly. 'She gave you a very fine dress,' he said. 'Perhaps you are being hasty in your judgement. Perhaps you have grown too accustomed to women who live as nuns.'

Annais shook her head. 'She gave me the gown because it made her look generous and kind in the eyes of others. All you see is the way she leans close to pour your wine and gaze upon

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you as if she would eat you alive. I don't know why you bothered going to that place tonight. She would have spread herself for you on a table and bid you feast to your heart's delight.'

Sabin's eyes widened. 'That certainly is not the talk of the convent,' he said, not knowing whether to be amused or angered. 'And your own interpretation is less than perfect. Yes, the lady Mariamne flirts, but it is her nature and not reserved for me alone.' He opened his hand towards her in a gesture of explanation. 'It is her way of obtaining notice and, since men have the power, of gaining approval. Many women behave thus. I do not doubt that she has cast her eyes over me and found me appealing. I find her appealing too, but only in the way that I might look at a fine horse or a good blade. I am not lust-hot for her and neither, I am sure, is she for me. If she was annoyed that I chose to go out this eve, then it is but pique, not ravening jealousy.'

Annais wriggled her shoulders and looked irritated. 'You did not see the way she stalked around the chamber and banged her coffer lid.'

'No, I did not, but there could be a dozen reasons for such behaviour.' He tilted his head and regarded her through narrowed eyes. 'Perhaps you are the slightest bit jealous of her, or worried because she is to be your father's new wife - your stepmother?'

Annais sprang to her feet and the harp gave out a shocked jangle of notes. 'Of course I am not jealous!' she cried. 'Are you blind that you cannot see beneath the surface to what she is?'

'I see a widowed woman about to be married to a man not of her choosing because of the lands her former husband held,' Sabin retorted, holding her furious gaze. 'I see perfectly well what she is ... and what she isn't. And do not tell me I am blind, for I have had a wealth more experience than you on the matter.'

For an instant, he thought that she was going to collar him with her precious, beautiful harp. The danger trembled like the ending note of a tune, plucked hard for drama and resonating into the distance. As the last echo faded, Annais turned from

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him and ran across the courtyard, her kidskin shoes making no more sound than the pattering of a fawn across a forest floor. He watched her shadow darken among the other shadows and vanish with her into the dwelling and thought wryly that he could have handled the situation better. As he had said, he had a wealth more experience on the matter. For an extra half-dinar, he could have stayed the night at the Oasis. He began to wish he had taken up the offer.

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Chapter 8

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f
f 1 here it is.' Fergus stabbed a freckled forefinger. 'Tel I Namir. It means the Hill of Leopards, but there are JL no leopards left. You have to go further into the hills for that sort of game.'