The Saracen: The Holy War by Robert Shea (novels for beginners .TXT) 📕

Charles said, "I have prayed that I would have your help, Simon. Can you not tell me that my prayer has been answered?"

If he refused Charles and went back to Gobignon, he would never see Sophia again. And he would probably never again know a moment like this, when he felt so right as the Count de Gobignon.

But he was still offended by Charles's claiming a commitment that Simon had not given him.

"It seems you already know your prayer has been answered, Sire."

Charles frowned for a moment, then smiled and patted Simon on the shoulder. "Forgive me. I want so much for you to join me that I spoke as if it were already true. Will you make it true?"

He looked up into Charles's large, compelling eyes and nodded slowly.[239]

"I will come after the harvest is in, Sire. I will come with my army."

Rachel slid from the bed, trying to shake it as little as possible so as not to wake John. Letting her robe of yellow silk flutter loosely about her nude body, she hurried behind the screen that hid her commode and opened the chest that held her most private belongings. She took out the device of bladder and tubing Tilia had given her long ago, and with a pitcherful of lukewarm water washed John's seed out of herself quickly. Over the year and more that she had been with John, she had never let him see her using the thing. Men such as John, she knew, took pride in their power to get a woman with child.

She was fourteen now, and her breasts were filling out. Many women had babies at fourteen. She would have to be more careful than ever. She stretched her mouth in a grimace at the thought of a baby that looked like John.

As usual, she had endured, not enjoyed, the Tartar's mating. Another change she had noticed in herself, though, was that she had begun to understand how women could feel pleasure with a man. Several times since last spring a yellow-haired man had appeared naked before her in her dreams, and had lain with her. When she woke she could not remember the man's face, but she still felt the exquisite sensations his body gave her, and she sometimes had to caress herself until a surge of pleasure relieved the yearning stirred up by her dream.

Other times, when John came to her late at night and she was very sleepy, she closed her eyes and was able to imagine that the yellow-haired man was with her, and then she actually enjoyed John's attentions, which pleased him very much.

She tied the robe's sash and went to the window. The breeze from the west was strong and salt-smelling, and she was thankful that she was here, in a villa by the sea, and not in Rome. August, they said, killed one out of every three people in Rome. She sat on the wide sill and looked out. She did not lean out too far; she was four stories up, overlooking jagged boulders piled along the shore.

Afternoon sunlight sparkled on the Tyrrhenean Sea, and a flash of sun on the helmet of a guard patrolling the beach caught her eye. One of Sordello's Venetians, she thought, judging by his bowl-shaped helmet and the crossbow he carried. The men-at-arms of the Orsini family, who had lent this villa to the French party, wore helmets shaped to the head, with crests on top.

She heard the bed creaking behind her, and the Tartar groaned.[240]

"Pour me another cup of wine, Reicho," he called.

"You have had three cups already, Usun," she said, but obediently went to the table and poured red wine from a flagon into his silver cup.

He had taught her his original Tartar name, Usun, and he liked to hear her say it. With the help of Friar Mathieu and Ana the Bulgarian, she had learned to understand and speak his language fairly well. She knew now that "Tartar" was merely a European word for his people, that they called themselves "Mongols."

He pulled his silk trousers up and knotted the drawstring. His belly had been flat when she first met him. Now it was swollen as if he were having a baby, and excess flesh sagged on his shoulders and chest. His decline was partly from too much wine and partly from too little activity. She rarely saw John without a wine cup in his hand, and by evening he was often surly or in a stupor. He talked to her less, and was less often able to couple with her. If he spent many more months like this, he would sicken and die like a wild bird kept in a cage.

"I had six cups this morning before I came to you," he boasted. "Wine makes me strong." He drank off half his cup and set it on the marble table.

She sat beside him on the rumpled bed. "You need to get out, Usun. Go riding."

He shrugged. "Too hot." He grinned, stroking his white beard. "But next year we will ride to war."

"Next year?"

"King Charr has promised to let me and Nikpai—Philip—ride to war with him when he attacks Manfred."

In her anxiety she seized John's arm—she rarely touched him—and said, "You must insist that your guardians let you go out riding regularly. And you must stop drinking so much wine. Otherwise you will be very sick."

His black eyes were wider and moister than usual. "You worry about me, Reicho?"

She took her hand from his arm. "I don't want to see you die," she said. She did not know why she felt that way. After all, he had enslaved her, and every time he possessed her body it was virtually rape. And if he died, she might be free. But, she supposed, she had gotten to know him so well that she felt sorry for him.

She did not like to hear about this war against King Manfred. Friar Mathieu had told her gently that her lost friends, Sophia, David, and the others, were very likely all spies for Manfred. If Sophia were in King Manfred's employ, that made no difference to[241] Rachel. From all she had heard, Jews were better treated in Manfred's kingdom than anywhere else in Italy. The French, on the other hand, were often cruel to Jews. It would bring sorrow and suffering to many people if Charles d'Anjou conquered southern Italy and Sicily.

She wished she could be with Sophia. But Sophia was probably in Sicily, and how could Rachel, all alone, cross half of Italy to find her?

The locked box she kept under the bed, which held all the gold and jewelry Usun had given her, was far too big and heavy for her to carry. And even if she could escape and take it away with her, she could not protect herself from robbery. But it would be the worst sort of stupidity to leave without it. It was all she had from these awful years. It was less like a treasure, though, than like a block of stone to which she was chained.

If she were ever to escape, she would first have to get away from the guards, the Armenians and the Venetians, all of whom had orders to watch her and make sure she did not run away. That Sordello, the capitano of the Venetians, seemed to have his eyes on her whenever she went out of her room.

She was alone in the world. Nowhere to go. There were moments when she felt so lost and unhappy she wanted to climb out the open window of her room and throw herself down to the rocks.

"Maybe next year, when King Charr goes to war, I will not be here," Usun said suddenly.

"You must wish you could be back with your own people," she said.

If I am lonely, think how he must feel. Except for Philip, there is no one like him anywhere in this part of the world. Only a few people speak his language. Everything looks strange to him.

"We are waiting for orders from our new master, Abagha Khan," said Usun. "Another letter must come soon. It is now six months since his father died."

Rachel felt her heart fluttering with anxiety. "And when Abagha Khan's message comes, what do you think it will say?"

"He will order us either to go to the king of the Franks or to go back to Persia." He took a swallow of wine. Rachel saw that his white beard was stained pink from all the red wine he had spilled on it.

"Then you might go home again?" said Rachel. "Would you like that?" Her hands trembled, and she twined her fingers together in her lap to still them.

Usun laughed and drank. "Not home, Reicho. My home is farther[242] away from Persia than Persia is from here. It is so far away and there are so many enemies in between that I may never see it again. But I do not care. My people have a fine domain in Persia."

He drank, and held out his empty cup. She filled it with a shaking hand. If he went back to Persia, she might be free of him. Unless her worst fears turned out to be true.

"So, you may soon say good-bye to me." She dared not let him see how eager she was for him to be gone.

He looked up at her, and the light from outside etched the thousand tiny criss-crossed wrinkles around his eyes. "No, Reicho. If I go back, you must come with me."

Her heart turned to ice, just as if he had told her he was going to kill her. She had suspected this and had prayed it would not be so. Everything he said and did, from the day he took her from Tilia's house, showed that he meant never to let her go. She was to be his prisoner for life.

"Usun," she said, trying to keep her voice calm, "I do not want to go with you."

He stared at her, his brown face wooden.

"You are afraid," he said. "But you must not be. When you come with me, you will be a very great lady. I am a baghadur. I am as great a lord as King Charr is here. I know that people of your religion are treated badly by the Christians. Among my people all religions are equal. The Ulang-Yassa, the law of Genghis Khan, commands it." When he spoke the name "Genghis Khan" there was a reverence in his voice, like a Christian speaking of Jesus.

She was reminded of Tilia, telling her why it was better to be a harlot than a wife. She wanted to weep with frustration, as if she had been pounding her fists against a stone wall. How could a man who seemed content to have left his own homeland behind forever understand how she felt?

"Usun, it does not matter to me that I am lowly here and might be great there. This land is where I was born and grew up, and no matter how much I suffer here, it is my home. I do not want to live among Tartars and Persians. I would be so terribly alone. I beg you, do not try to uproot me from this land."

"You would not be alone," he said in a low, sad voice. "You would have me."

"I could never be happy with you." It was a terrible thing to say, but only the truth might make him change his mind.

He did not look at her. He drained his cup and thrust it at her as if striking a blow.

"The flagon is empty," she said.[243]

"I will go." He stood up and pulled his tunic on over his head. He was no taller than she was, but as she sat on the bed and stared up at him, he seemed to loom over her like a giant. His black gaze was empty of feeling as stone.

"It does not matter whether you are happy. You are mine and you will come with me."

She shrank away from him, terrified. The face he showed her was the face of the man who had dragged her naked through that Orvieto street.

She threw herself full length on the bed, sobbing. Her heart felt ready to burst with anguish.

Oh, God, only You can help me. Send someone to deliver me, or I will die.

LXV

Pride swelled Daoud's heart as he watched the column of Muslim cavalry suddenly change direction and sweep like a long roll of thunder through the valley. A flutter of orange banners on their flanks, and the men at the far end of the line launched into an all-out gallop, while the riders at the near end slowed to a high-stepping trot. The whole line pivoted like a