The Falcons of Montabard (55 page)

Sabin came away from the evening with Usamah feeling as if he had been tied in the path of a storm. His skull thundering with a massive headache, his legs weak, he was escorted back to the other hostages. Suddenly his guards paused and bowed, pressing as close to him as splints to a broken limb as an entourage approached from the direction of the hostages' quarters. Usamah's uncle was pacing at the side of a slight man with obsidian-black eyes and thin, hawkish features. His belly was as round as an egg on his slender frame and he walked with a

404

bow-legged stride as if his horse were still between his legs. A peacock plume pinned in place by a large red jewel wafted on his turban. Wedged between his guards, Sabin deemed it politic to bow also. This, he surmised, must be il Bursuqi himself, and he had obviously been inspecting his new 'merchandise'. Sabin clenched his fists but he succeeded in keeping his head down until the Atabeg had passed.

The moment that the guards had delivered him to the hostages' chamber and locked the door, Annais descended upon him. It was obvious from the look on her face that she now knew why il Bursuqi was at Shaizar.

'He says that he is going to take Joveta with him on the morrow!' Her voice was high-pitched with indignation and distress on the child's behalf. Joveta herself was fast asleep and without an inkling of what was about to happen to shatter the fragile security of her world.

'Yes, I know.' Grimacing, Sabin rubbed her arm in a comforting gesture. 'Usamah told me.'

'Is there nothing we can do?'

'I wish there was, but we are less than pawns in a deadly game of chess. We will be moved where they wish. Yielding some of the hostages will cost Shaizar nothing and earn them il Bursuqi's extravagant goodwill.'

'But Joveta is little more than a baby, and if they take her, I cannot go with her.' Annais pressed her hand to her distended belly. Her eyes were bright with tears of distress.

'I will go in your stead,' Letice had been standing a little apart, but she had been listening to the conversation and now she stepped forward and laid a hand on Annais' arm. 'Joveta knows me well enough and we are comfortable together.'

Annais chewed her underlip.

'It is the best we can do,' Letice said. 'What else is there?'

Annais nodded and drew the palm of her hand across her eyes. 'You are right,' she said. 'And thinking straight while I am snivelling like a child.'

'Nay, you have enough on your trencher. You missay your

405

own sense and courage.' Letice gave her a maternal kiss on the cheek.

'Surely King Baldwin will move swiftly when he hears the news. He has to.' Annais felt Sabin stiffen and looked at him, alarm dilating her pupils. 'What is it? What else has Usamah told you?'

Sabin sighed. 'That King Baldwin has abandoned the siege of Aleppo and turned south to Jerusalem.'

Annais inhaled sharply. 'Does he not care about us? Do we mean nothing to him?'

'There is coin to be raised in Jerusalem and perhaps more easily than in the north,' Sabin said. 'He probably did the right thing in withdrawing from Aleppo rather than risk a battle with il Bursuqi.'

Annais swallowed and turned her head aside. 'How much longer will this drag on?' she whispered. Am I to see my children grow up as captives and under constant threat for their lives? If I had known ..." She did not finish the sentence, but her expression was bleak with self-loathing.

'You would still have done the same,' Letice said. 'Looking back means that you never see the road ahead.'

'She is right,' Sabin murmured, drawing her closer. 'And I speak as one who has lost his way more times than I care to remember.'

Annais leaned against him. 'Perhaps I do not want to see the road ahead,' she said, 'even if I was the one who set my feet on the path.'

In sombre mood, they retired to their beds. A while later, Joveta woke from a nightmare and climbed into bed at Annais's side, wriggling and snuggling like a small puppy. Her hair had been recently washed and smelled of the almond soap that the Saracen women used; her breath was a softness that barely stirred the air. Feeling grief and guilt too deep for tears, Annais held her close and kept watch while the hours of the night burned away in the faint glow from the single lamp in the wall

406

niche. A cockerel crowed and grey light filtered through the fretwork shutters like an enemy. Turning her head on the pillow, she saw that Sabin too was awake, and she guessed that he had not slept either, but kept his own silent vigil.

It was a hard parting. When the guards came to the hostage chamber to fetch those who were to go with il Bursuqi, Joveta shrieked and screamed. She clung to Annais and finally had to be prised off like a limpet from a rock. Letice she kicked and bit. And then she was violently sick.

'Leave her to me.' Letice raised her hand to prevent Annais from intervening. 'The sooner this is done, the better for all.' She cast a swift glance at the guards who were running out of patience. Having wiped the child down, Letice wrapped her firmly in a blanket, swaddling her as if she were an infant. Arms and legs bound, forced to be still, Joveta ceased to struggle. A blank, despairing expression entered her eyes and she became as limp as the cotton-stuffed doll among her small bundle of possessions. Burdened with the child's weight, unwilling to bring her near Annais lest another tantrum ensue, Letice kissed the air between her and the young woman and went to the door.

'It won't be long until we are all free,' she said. 'Hold that in your thoughts, and have a care to yourself and the baby. God bless you.' The last word was spoken swiftly and ended on a gasp as the guards bundled her and Joveta out of the door and banged it shut.

Annais's eyes filled with tears. Turning, she blindly sought the comfort of Sabin's breast, but she could not blot from her mind the sight of Joveta screaming in Letice's arms, then lying limp as if dead.

407

Chapter 35

Damp from his first bath, snuffling as he breathed the strangeness of air, the baby furled his tiny fists and yawned. He had a fine down of dark hair that the lamplight sprang with gold, dainty eyebrows feathered with paintbrush precision, and skin so soft that Annais almost hesitated to stroke his cheek. Almost, but not quite.

He had been born exactly as the midwife said, two hours after midnight in the early morning of the fifth day of April. He was not a large baby, but he was robust, and Annais knew she had borne him. Her belly was like a mound of collapsed dough after the first proving, and the place between her legs throbbed and twinged. The midwife had dosed her with various potions to stem the bleeding and ease the discomfort, but had declared herself well satisfied with the condition of both mother and son.

The baby rooted against her stroking finger. The first time, with Guillaume, she would not have known what to do, but now she drew down her chemise and put him to suck. He mumbled at her nipple for a moment and then latched on. His small jaw set to work. The women of the harem laughed with pleasure at the sight and cooed to each other with delight. The differences that separated Saracen from Frank did not matter. They were all united as women, and childbirth was a danger and a joy common to all.

Since the birth had taken place in the harem, Sabin had not been permitted anywhere near, although messages as to the

408

progress of the labour had been sent out to him, the last one an hour ago when the baby was born. Even now, as a Frankish male and a Christian, he was not allowed to set foot within these chambers and would be unable to visit Annais until she left them.

Once her son had finished feeding, Annais prised him gently from her nipple and handed him, milk-filled and sleepy, to Aiesha. 'Will you take him to my husband, and tell him that I am well . . . ?'

'Of course.' Aiesha wrapped the baby in a shawl of silk edged with inscriptions from the Koran and fringed with gold.

Annais frowned as she watched the woman bear him to the door. Although she trusted Aiesha - had no choice in the matter - it was still a wrench to watch her leave the room with him. It was as if the cord between them had yet to be cut and there was a pang in her loins, squeezing deep and then stretching taut. She knew in her heart that the pains were caused by giving suck, but it was still as if being separated from her baby had caused them.

'Come, you must sleep now. It has been a day and a night since you have done so. You must gather your strength.' A Frankish-speaking concubine presented Annais with an infusion of aromatic herbs. There was honey in the brew to take away the acrid taste and as Annais sipped, she realised how tired she was.

'I want to go home,' she said and suddenly tears spilled and overflowed. She raised the palm of one hand to wipe them away and sniffed loudly like a child. She had not cried once at the birth pains, except to give vent to the effort of pushing the baby from her womb, but now she had an ocean. They wrenched from her, further hurting her tired, aching body.

'Hush, lady. Surely you will, and soon.'

The voice was as soothing as the honey spooned into the drink to negate the foul taste of the herbs. 'Will I?
¹
Annais choked. 'How can you give me guarantees when the Emir cannot?'

409

The woman gave her a wounded look and her eyes grew wary. Annais managed a harsh, exhausted smile, bitter as the herbs, with no leavening of sweetness. She had failed the game; she was not supposed to answer back except with soft words of her own. 'Never mind,' she said, swallowing against the tightness in her throat and using a corner of the sheet to wipe her eyes. 'You are right, I should sleep.' For the moment, it was ten times better than being awake.

Lacking a chapel, the hostages had fashioned a small prie-dieu in a corner of their chamber, and it was here that Sabin had spent the night in prayer while Annais laboured to deliver their child. His knowledge of the process of childbirth was not great, but for the moment far larger than he desired. Pain and the risk of death. It was something that he had faced often in battle, but there had always been a choice. However, a gravid woman had none. She could not turn aside and say that she had changed her mind. She could not remain at the back of the ranks or flee if the battle raged too hard. It was her lot to stand in the front line and win or die.

Now and again, whispered messages on her progress had been brought to the door — isolated gleams of hope and flashes of fear in the darkness. The news that the child was born, a son, and that Annais was well had driven him to his knees. He was still there now, head bowed at the prie-dieu, the feeling of battle-sickness on him as it often came in the aftermath of great physical or mental exertion. Yet the battle had not been his. He was merely its cause.

The door opened and the guards stood aside to admit one of the women from the harem. She was swathed from head to foot, only her eyes showing, and she carried a small bundle similarly wrapped. It was making soft noises as she tiptoed across to the prie-dieu.

'Your son, my lord,' she said in Arabic and placed the baby in his arms.

The tiny body was securely bandaged in linen swaddling and

410

only the baby's face remained free to air and movement. In the gathering light of dawn, father and son examined each other. 'He weighs no more than a kitten,' Sabin said and swallowed. He had held Guillaume when a few hours old, had thought himself accustomed, but this was totally different, and if he had not already been kneeling, the feel of the child's body in his arms would indeed have felled him. Flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. Suddenly the infant's little face was a blur.

'Your lady is tired, but she has weathered the labour well,' the woman said with approval in her voice. 'She may look as graceful as a lily, but she has the strength of an ox.'

He smiled at that. 'Stronger than me,' he said. A drop of moisture splashed onto the baby's cheek and it screwed up its little face and moved its head from side to side. 'When can I see her?'

The woman clucked her tongue and folded her arms. 'She must stay in the harem until she is recovered,' she said. 'But I will arrange for her to be brought out for a while so that you may speak with her.'

Sabin inclined his head, but inwardly he grimaced at the strictures imposed by being a prisoner. Had the birth taken place at Montabard, Annais would have been confined to their bedchamber for several weeks, surrounded by her women, but he would have had the right to be there too, not excluded and forced to be grateful for the few crumbs thrown.

'The child will need to be baptised,' he said. 'I request the visit of a priest.'

'It shall be done.'

The door opened on Usamah and two sleek golden hounds. He was wearing calf-high boots and his hunting tunic. An attendant waited in the corridor, Usamah's cloak held over his arm.

'I understand that congratulations are in order, that Allah has granted you the joy of a son,' Usamah said and came to look briefly down at the baby in Sabin's arms. 'A fine seedling,' he said. 'May he grow to be as excellent a warrior as his sire.'

411

Sabin snorted. 'A fine warrior I make,' he said. 'I doubt I could swing a sword these days.'

Usamah eyed him thoughtfully. 'There is no reason why you should not practise as you used to. Besides, the boy is missing out on his training.' He flicked a glance towards the alcove where young Joscelin of Edessa was still asleep. 'What happened before . . .' He made a small gesture. 'It was regrettable, but that situation no longer exists. Nor, with a wife and two infants, do I think that you will do anything to endanger them.'

'They become hostages of a double nature,' Sabin said wryly, curling his arm yet more protectively around his son.

'You could see it in those terms. My uncle will not object to you taking manly exercise in the yard, providing your swords are made of wood. I am sorry I cannot take you hunting. He would not permit that, but I would have enjoyed your company.' He peered more closely at the baby, but Sabin suspected it was for form's sake rather than a genuine interest in the child. 'How is he to be named?'