The Falcons of Montabard (29 page)

A shout from the guard on the lookout tower above the main gate brought Sabin striding along the walk boards to gaze out. In the gilded light of early morning, men and horses were toiling up the track like a chain of ants. Silks fluttered on spears, harness flashed as the sun spangled on buckles and studs. Gerbert was timely home. Watching the cavalcade, Sabin knew that he should be relieved to relinquish his burden, but relief was not the feeling that flowed through him. Tersely he gave the order to open the gate and when the guard looked up in surprise at his tone, Sabin glowered at him and stamped down to the bailey.

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The news that Gerbert had arrived home in time for the birth of their child came to Annais in one of the lulls between pains. At first she thought that the whispered conversation at the chamber door was the result of Sabin sending yet again to ask how she was faring, but Letice returned to her side with a smile and told her that Gerbert and the men were back, safe apart from a few minor scratches. 'And your father is here too,' she said.

Annais swallowed against tears. She wished she could be waiting the news in the hall rather than labouring to produce it. The purging of her bowels had only been the start - thoroughly natural, so the midwife had said when she arrived in a whiff compounded of donkey, woodsmoke and garlic. Her body was only preparing itself to bear the child, but there would be a long wait yet. The woman had briskly taken charge and set Annais' women to rubbing her back with warm oil, and had prepared a tisane made with various secret herbs and honey. The pains came and went at regular intervals and, as the night progressed, had grown stronger. Now and again, the midwife would make a gentle examination and nod with satisfaction. 'I've known a first babe take a week,' she said, 'but your husband should be able to greet his heir by dusk.'

'Dusk!' Annais's voice was hoarse with dismay as Soraya, the Syrian woman who was married to the knight Durand, translated what the woman had said.

The midwife waved her hand and gabbled.

Soraya flushed and looked embarrassed. 'She says that you are one of the fortunate ones, that you have wide hips and the child is lying well.'

Annais had a moment to feel ashamed before the next contraction seized her in its pincers and drove everything away but the tightening pain. Fortunate or not, she was not enjoying the experience.

'Men,' she gasped as the squeezing grip finally eased, 'have by far the better part of the bargain!'

The midwife chuckled when Soraya told her what had been said.

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'Oh aye,' she laughed. 'There has to be some recompense for being born with your wits down there instead of in your skull.'

Unable to pace, stifled by Gerbert's return, Sabin took out a troop with the dual purpose of conducting a patrol and hunting. The exercise, the stretching of the horse beneath him, helped to a degree, but even at full gallop across the grassy meadows opening beneath the foothills, the wind parting his hair and stinging his half-closed eyes, he could not outride himself.

Finally, as the sun was lowering over the seaward plain, he turned the men for home with their catch of three gazelle and a brace of hares. Crossing a stream, they came across the spoor of a lion in the shingly mud at the water's edge. The wildness in Sabin demanded pursuit, but he suppressed it. If not to himself, then he had a duty to the men and to the castle. Night was falling, and even if he yielded to that wildness, he was beginning to realise that it would not be satisfied. The hunger was too great, too destructively ravenous. Better to endure the pangs of starvation than to rouse an insatiable feeding frenzy. He marked where they had seen the spoor for a further occasion, and clicked his tongue to the horse.

As they left the plain and began the long climb to the castle, they encountered the exhausted royal messenger on his spent horse and thus were the first to hear his news and receive the call to arms.

'Come now, girl, one more push,' the midwife encouraged, her hand on Annais's belly. 'Your work is almost done.'

Panting, Annais closed her eyes and gathered her strength. An hour ago, the women had helped her from the bed to the birthing stool. The pains had reached a level that taxed her endurance but could not possibly go beyond it, or else she would die. Surge upon agonising surge.

'Good, good, almost there,' the midwife encouraged through Soraya, then suddenly squeezed her hand. 'Hold, my lady,' she

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commanded urgently. 'Wait a moment, the head is here and we do not want your flesh to tear.'

Annais struggled, her breath coming in great sobs as she strove not to push. The midwife busied herself beneath the birthing stool. Annais felt the pressure of the child's head against the opening to her womb and thought that she would split asunder. The woman gave a short exclamation of triumph and ordered her to push again, but gently. Seconds later, Annais felt the pressure relieve in a warm slither of sensation, and the midwife rose from her knees clutching a wizened, bluish-red creature. It gave two experimental squeaks, the second louder than the first, then expanded its repertoire to a series of indignant bawls.

A son,' the midwife cackled as exultantly as if she had borne him herself. 'My lady, you have a fine boy.' She laid the baby, wet and smeared from his birthing, in Annais's arms where he continued to bellow like a young bull. Annais was astonished, and not knowing whether to laugh or weep, did both. Helping hands swaddled the baby in warmed linen towels and his squawls diminished to grumbles and then silence. He stared around in myopic wonder. Even as the midwife cut the cord between them with a sharp pair of shears, Annais was tied by a bond that would last a lifetime.

The messenger had delivered his news and retired to the guardroom to eat and rest. In the hall, there was silence as the senior officers of Montabard digested the tidings.

Joscelin of Edessa had been out patrolling the territory around Saruj when he had encountered the army of the Emir Balak. There had been a skirmish in a heavy downpour. The Frankish horses had slithered in the ensuing mud and Balak's lighter troops had been able to surround and capture the lord of Edessa. Demands that he hand over his principal city in return for his release had been met with derision and Joscelin and his surviving men had been removed to Balak's fortress at Kharpurt to think about their response.

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'It could happen to any of us,' Gerbert said, chewing on his thumbnail. The frown lines between his grey eyes were pronounced. Not only was he anxious for his labouring wife, but this news had set a cat among the pigeons ... a Saracen cat with vicious claws. He looked at Strongfist. 'I do not suppose that King Baldwin will move his army south now.'

Strongfist kneaded his beard. 'Not immediately,' he said. 'He will have to take on the burden of Edessa until Joscelin can be freed.'

Gerbert grunted. 'At least he was lord of Edessa before he was King of Jerusalem,' he said. 'He knows these people well, and his wife is of those parts.' He sighed. 'I will put Montabard on alert. If the King needs more men to swell his ranks then T am at his disposal. I cannot see Balak sitting on his gain like a broody hen on a nest. He will want to wreak as much havoc as possible while he thinks we are in disarray.'

Again silence fell and the men gazed sombrely at each other. It was as much a blow to Frankish pride as it was to the fabric of their rule. Joscelin of Edessa was one of their greatest knights, and for him to fall into the hands of the Emir Balak was as much a source of chagrin as dismay.

'Balak won't hold Joscelin for long,' Gerbert said fiercely. 'He will find a way to escape . . . and when he does ..."

Sabin felt the restlessness tug at him. Although no one spoke, he knew that they all wanted to leap to horse and charge off to rescue Joscelin. It was as if the Frankish battle standard had fallen into enemy hands. But they had to plan ahead; they had to be pragmatic and ignore the heat that sprang from the belly.

Gerbert hissed softly through his teeth. Looking up, Sabin followed his gaze and saw that Letice had emerged from the opening to the turret stair, a bundle cradled in her arms. The smile on her face stretched from one side of her wimple to the other.

'A son and a grandson is born,' she announced, advancing to Gerbert and presenting the infant to him.

Gerbert held the baby along his bent forearm and parted the soft outer shawl to look upon the minute features. The child

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was not fully swaddled yet and Gerbert was able to lift one of the tiny, perfect hands and watch it curl around his forefinger. Suddenly his eyes were wet and he had to knuckle his tears. 'My wife ... is she . . . ?'

Letice gently touched his shoulder. 'Annais is well,' she said, 'tired and a little sore to say the least, but safe and joyful.'

Swallowing, Gerbert passed his newborn heir to Strongfist, who, as his grandfather, had second claim. 'I have to thank you for coming to Outremer,' he said in a voice that trembled with emotion, 'for without your decision, I would have neither my wife, nor this wonderful gift of a child.'

Strongfist cleared his throat and blinked hard. 'God's will,' he said gruffly into his beard and after a moment's awkward holding, passed the baby to Sabin. 'How is he to be named?'

'Guillaume, for my sire, the first lord of Montabard.' Gerbert's voice rang with emotion and pride. His complexion was so bright that it was almost incandescent.

Sabin cradled the infant. It opened its mouth and yawned at him. Even though it was newborn, he could already see the mingling of Gerbert's features and Annais's. Guillaume had Gerbert's eyes and brows, his mother's nose and a jaw that was going to be like Strongfist's. Sabin found his own throat tightening, which was ridiculous. He knew why he had been given the infant to hold, when Strongfist could have passed him straight back to Gerbert. He was being shown that this was what he had to fight for. It was one thing to say 'for the future', it was another to hold that future in his arms, solid of flesh, light as air, warm as love.

It was with opposing feelings of loss and relief that he returned the baby to its father. Gerbert broke away from the masculine circle they had formed and, telling Sabin and Strongfist he would be back in a while, headed for the stairs and his wife.

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Chapter 18

Little Guillaume de Montabard gurgled in his cradle, his attention fixed upon the lozenges of sunlight shining through the fretwork shutters into the women's chamber. At seven months old, his eyes were changing from the clouded grey-blue of the newborn to a lighter, lucent grey and the dark, natal hair was growing out to be replaced with curls of warm brownish-gold.

Gerbert bent over him and, as he had done on the day of his birth, gave the baby his finger. Guillaume grabbed it, conveyed it to his mouth and gnawed it experimentally with his two new teeth. Then he crowed at his father. Gerbert laughed and swept the baby out of the cradle and into his arms. He was wearing his gambeson over his tunic, but had yet to don his hauberk. That would come last, on the threshold of leaving.

Annais watched father and son with a smile on her lips and a leaden heart. Gerbert took such pride and pleasure in his son that it brought a lump to her throat when she saw them together. It made the pain of his birthing a negligible thing. Her body was still tingling from Gerbert's farewell lovemaking. She ached with a need she had small experience to name; she only knew that she had been brought to a brink and then left behind as he was consumed by his release.

'I wish you did not have to go,' she said. She bit her tongue as soon as the words were spoken. She had promised herself that she would be a proper soldier's wife, that she would let

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him do his duty without complaint and clinging.

'I wish it too, sweetheart,' he said and his glance flickered to the bed where they had so recently lain. 'But the King has commanded and I promised that I would go to him.' He made a face, then buried his expression against the soft flesh of his son's neck. 'It is only for a short while. Thierry is an experienced constable and the garrison is well drilled.'

'I know that.'

'And it has an excellent mistress to keep everyone in order,' he added with a smile. He came over to where she sat, her black hair loose to her waist and her chemise unlaced at the throat, exposing the top of her cleavage. The baby between them, he kissed her on lips that were still swollen from earlier kisses and cupped her breast. Her body throbbed. She wanted to pull him down, guide him inside her and cling to him, but there was no time; she could hear the servants prowling in the antechamber, and the shouts of men and horses from the ground outside the hall. Besides, she understood Gerbert well enough to know that active demanding would suggest to him that she was dissatisfied. She did not want to send him away with that kind of doubt in his mind . . . not after the behaviour of her father's wife.

'Keep whole,' she murmured fervently as their mouths parted. 'Come back soon.'

'Even the very maw of hell would not prevent me.' His grey eyes were both fierce and tender. He stroked his forefinger over the soft down on the baby's skull. 'Besides, I have a conroi of sons waiting to be begotten.'

When he had gone, the maids bustled into the room from the antechamber to help their mistress dress so that she could go down and bid Gerbert farewell in the public arena of the ward. Ignoring the women, Annais bore Guillaume to the window and gazed through the half-opened shutters on the men arming up to leave. Tied in line and tended by their keeper, the baggage asses and mules brayed and stamped. Gerbert was leaving the footsoldiers behind and taking only the swift, mounted troops King Baldwin had requested. She saw Sabin's

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page, Amalric, holding Lucifer's rein. The grey shone in the spring sunlight like the blade of a damascened sword. Sabin came striding from the direction of the kitchens, a large flat bread in one hand, the other resting lightly on the hilt of his sword. His great kite shield was strapped to his back, upside down, so that the pointed end stuck up behind him like the peak of a mountain drawn by a child.