Crusader's Lady. Lynna Banning

      Genoese merchants in flowing robes swaggered along the smelly quay, arguing with ship captains and food vendors. Templar knights with cross-emblazoned white surcoats surreptitiously eyed women who promenaded along the harbor walkway in provocative sheer caftans, their nails and cheeks painted red. Houries. The noise of the harbour gave her a headache. If she debarked, the crush of people at the dock would swallow her up.

      ‘Move on, then, lad.’ De Valery strode past her, leading his dark stallion toward the gangplank. ‘You will recover your sea legs by suppertime.’

      Her throat convulsed. The thought of food made her nauseated.

      ‘Soray!’ the knight shouted at her from the top of the gangplank. ‘Make haste!’

      Still, she could not let go of the ship’s rail. She knew little of this teeming place before her, full of unbelievers. She belonged in Palestine.

      But in Palestine the man who sent the message she now carried for Khalil would kill rather than have it fall into the wrong hands. She glanced back toward her homeland and shuddered.

      She could not go back. Perhaps even now an assassin was tracking her down to slit her throat in some shadowed alley. She sucked in a lungful of hot air that smelled of fish and thought she would be sick again.

      ‘Soray!’ His sharp tone cut through the cottony feeling inside her head and she stumbled forward.

      ‘Aye, lord, I am coming.’

      De Valery tramped halfway up the gangplank, grasped the neck of her tunic and dragged her forward. ‘Hold on to Jupiter,’ he instructed. He thrust the animal’s brushy tail into her hands. ‘Now, lad, move!’

      She took a single step, wobbled off to one side and would have tipped into the sea had she not accidentally stumbled against the horse’s hind end. By some miracle the beast did not strike out with his rear hooves, and she staggered after the animal, acutely aware of the knight’s quiet laughter.

      So, he was amused at her plight, was he? He would be less amused if she tossed up her stomach contents onto his mount’s beautifully plumed tail. Better yet, on his blue surcoat.

      Her head spun as he stalked beside her.

      ‘Steady, now. Move quickly, boy. We must not lose sight of the…monk.’ He stretched out his long legs and tramped down the walkway so fast Soraya could not keep up.

      She loosened her grasp on the destrier’s tail and sped up her pace until she could touch the animal’s withers. Biting her lip, she gazed at the stallion’s saddle. Without thinking she flexed her knees, sprang upward and dug the fingers of both hands into the coarse hair of his mane. She clawed her way up into the saddle and clutched at the high pommel. Her brain reeled from the effort.

      ‘God!’ the knight muttered under his breath. ‘You are part mountain goat.’

      ‘Nay, lord, I am part lioness.’

      Instantly she saw her mistake.

      De Valery’s face tipped up to look at her, his eyes questioning. ‘Lioness? Not a lion?’

      She shook her head quickly to cover her lapse. ‘You know nothing of such matters,’ she blurted. Another mistake, this time much worse. A servant did not contradict his lord.

      He narrowed his sea-blue eyes. ‘Nothing, you say?’ His voice dropped to a menacing whisper. ‘What do I not know, besides the impudence of a servant boy?’

      His shadowed gaze caught hers and held it. With all her will she tried to look away, but she could not. It was as if he conjured away the noisy market-place, the cries of hawkers, the shouts of seamen until her senses swam in a giant cocoon of silence.

      ‘I did but mean…’ Her dry tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She looked away to the left where a huge fortress loomed, built of grey stone with crenellated walls and square towers. Some great lord must live there, watching over his ships.

      ‘I see more than is apparent,’ he grumbled. ‘Things are often not what they seem, and Saladin is a master of such tricks.’

      ‘The Christians, too, use tricks.’

      ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘The Christians, as well.’ He looked at her oddly. ‘Not only have you an agile tongue but there is a quick intelligence hidden under your dusty head covering. How is it you were a mere servant to your uncle?’

      The horse sidestepped to avoid a ripe melon escaping from a nearby cart, and Soraya swayed in the saddle. Dizzy, she clapped her hand over her mouth. She did not want to answer his question, so feigned sickness.

      ‘Can you see the monk?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes, lord.’ She spoke through her fingers, tight against her lips. ‘He stops to mount his horse, and now rides on toward that fortress ahead.’

      ‘Good.’ Marc had feared the impulsive, headstrong king would pursue some military diversion in the city. Instead it appeared that Richard would seek shelter. God, he would bear close watching. A healthy Richard was harder to reason with than an ailing Richard. And there were those who would not weep to see him dead.

      ‘Keep your eyes on him, lad. He can be more slippery than an oiled mackerel.’

      ‘Yes, lord. But if I may respectfully suggest, if you mounted we could move faster.’

      Marc grunted. ‘If I mounted, you would then walk?’

      The lad fell silent. Hah! Marc guessed the boy would rather concede the matter than climb down from his hard-won perch on none-too-steady legs.

      Marc reached for the water skin, uncorked the vessel and took a long pull, then handed it to the boy.

      ‘I dare not drink, lord. I fear I will not keep it down.’

      ‘Better that than die of thirst. Such an end is not pretty.’

      A drawbridge manned by an unseen guard blocked entry into the fortress. Marc stopped some paces away as a voice boomed from the narrow window slit in the square stone gatehouse. ‘Who seeks entry at the gate of the Templar knights?’

      ‘A friend,’ Marc called. ‘A knight of the Scots and a holy man of God.’

      ‘What names?’ the voice barked back.

      ‘Marc de Valery and…’ He hesitated. Would Richard reveal himself once safely inside these walls? If so, Marc would be caught in a lie.

      ‘…and a monk lately come from Jerusalem. Simon the…hermit.’ He ignored the king’s choked protest behind him.

      ‘Hermit, indeed,’ Richard muttered. The boy, Soray, twisted in the saddle and shot an interested look at the cowled figure.

      ‘He is not a hermit, then?’ the lad whispered. ‘I thought him one of those chosen by God.’

      ‘You think too much,’ Marc replied in a cold voice. Not only was Richard not a monk, he was most assuredly not a holy man. Not a man loved by the crusading barons from France and Germany.

      ‘Yes, lord, that is true, I do think too much. I think about the moon and the stars, about the water that bubbles out of the desert, about—’

      ‘Enough! Think instead where we shall sleep tonight if we are not welcomed by the Templars.’ He eyed the gatekeeper’s shadow behind the narrow window. ‘We are godly men. We seek shelter and permission to hear mass in your chapel.’

      ‘Christians, then,’ came the voice. ‘Of Rome or Constantinople?’

      ‘We speak the words of God in humble Latin, not in Greek.’ Behind him, Richard snorted in impatience and stepped his horse forward. ‘Tell the fool we demand admittance. Tell the grand master that the conquerer of—’

      Marc wheeled and gripped the king’s arm. ‘Quiet!’

      Richard glared at him, his face reddening. ‘You overstep, de Valery.’