Behold the Dawn, Page 5

  Roderic’s chest constricted. “The Baptist?”

  “Nay. But I believe he could prove the answer to removing that particular vermin from under your skin, as well as all the others.”

  “Who?” Hugh demanded, leaning his weight on the foot nearest the Templar.

  Roderic lifted a hand high enough for Hugh to see it. He knew full well that his lieutenants did not appreciate each other’s value. So long as he remained in command, however, they must tolerate one another.

  Warin smiled, almost showing teeth. “What if I were to tell you I could supply you with a man who is no petty bungler? Who is renowned for his fighting skill and expertise?”

  “I would say it is still not worth the risk,” Hugh said.

  Roderic glanced at him, then back at Warin. “And how do you guarantee this?”

  Warin’s smile revealed the cleft in his chin. “You’ve no doubt heard of the tourneyer Marcus Annan?”

  The muscles in Hugh’s cheek bunched near the base of his jaw. “He is here?”

  “He is.”

  Roderic glanced at the Norman. “You know him?”

  “All who fight in the tourneys know of him. But, yes, I have met him—in battle.”

  “And if one is to judge from your tone,” Warin said, “he won?”

  “We will meet again.” Hugh looked at Roderic and angled a shoulder so that he had effectively turned his back on the Knight Templar. “I disapprove. This Marcus Annan is a dangerous man.”

  “We seek a dangerous man, do we not?”

  “I have heard he is honorable,” Warin said. “And he is skilled.

  “How skilled?”

  “Enough to rival our king in strength and your holy self in cunning.”

  Roderic lifted an eyebrow. “If you have that high an opinion of him, then I think prudence demands I at least give him an audience.”

  Hugh snorted. “You belittle your vaunted cunning if you court assassins before the eyes of all Christendom.”

  “You forget your place, Lord Hugh.” Roderic gathered his robes and stepped forward. “I have no such intentions. But I think our sovereign lord King Richard would enjoy the momentary distraction of meeting such a famed fighter. Do you not agree?”

  Chapter IV

  ANNAN WAITED BEFORE the closed entrance of a huge tent. Above his left shoulder, the flowers upon the blue pennant of the royal English family shone in the light of the rising moon.

  At his side, Marek fidgeted. “What would an English king want with us?”

  “Not you—me.” Marek had already been informed he was to stay outside and keep his flapping mouth shut. Annan grunted. Even had he been in the habit of believing in miracles, the hope of Marek’s mouth ever staying shut was too preposterous to inspire faith.

  “You might need a second sword in there, you know.”

  “I doubt a king would be stirring himself from his sickbed just to have a wandering tourneyer’s head removed from his body.”

  “Soothe your own concerns, but I still want to know what he called you for. Or how he even knew we was here.”

  “It’s one of the unfortunate consequences of having a reputation.”

  “You don’t have a reputation here. Not yet.”

  Annan shifted his weight to lean against a banner pole. “Not yet.” His chest lifted in a sigh. Sometimes regret weighed as heavily upon him as did the oppressive heat of this sultry land. If new beginnings were possible, he would have started over long ago. But the past was written in blood. It could be neither forgotten nor remade, and the future always followed in its tracks, unwavering.

  “Master Annan?” A man, dressed in colors so jaunty they were visible even in the moonlight, thrust aside the tent flap. “His Majesty bids you enter.”

  Annan pushed away from the pole, one hand landing reflexively on his sword handle. He batted Marek’s arm as he passed. “Keep your eyes open for anything I need to know about. Like that shadow over there.” He gestured at the dark-robed figure lurking some two tents down. He didn’t pause to see the lad’s reaction.

  The courtier—probably a minstrel—held the tent flap for him and then led him through the empty outer partition of the huge tent. The curtains at the far end were pulled back and tied with cords of scarlet, and through the opening Annan could see the foot of a bed and several men gathered around it.

  Some five paces from the opening, the minstrel stopped and turned to address him. He frowned, probably realizing how far he would have to look up to speak into Annan’s face. “His Majesty is ill, and you are not to rouse him. You will bow as you enter and wait for him to bid you rise.”

  The minstrel beckoned with his hand and led Annan into the second partition. A score of knights crowded near the walls, their collective gaze focused on Annan as he entered, though he could detect little in their interest beyond curiosity. The far wall, shrouded in netting to deter vermin, was flung open to the night.

  In the midst of a bed that must have filled an entire ship’s cabin on its journey across the sea, the English king lay propped on silken pillows. Perspiration glinted beneath the red-gold ringlets on his forehead, and his blotched face bore the gauntness of pain. His eyes, however, were alight with interest, command, poise.

  “The infamous Marcus Annan.”

  Annan halted near the foot of the bed and inclined his head.

  Richard’s eyebrows lifted, and the group behind Annan fell silent.

  “You do not bow before our sovereign lord?” said the sharp accent of a Norman.

  Annan glanced to his right, into the dark, handsome face of Hugh de Guerrant. The man’s lip curled, and his hand clenched his sword. Annan’s encounter with Hugh at a melee tourney in Paris more than a year ago was memorable only in the deep scar Annan still bore on his left hip—a result of the other’s frustrated attempt to revenge his losses after the competition.

  Hugh drifted to the foot of the bed. “Arrogance may perhaps be acceptable on the field of a melee, but not here, among your betters.”

  “I do not bow before foreign kings.”

  Surprised voices murmured behind him, and the king’s chin lifted as he recognized the accent. “Scot.”

  “Aye.”

  “I have heard much about you.” Richard pursed his lips. “Coming from another man, perhaps your words would find cause for offense. But if the rumors speak the truth, you are an equal to us all in arms if not in rank. Even still, there are those who whisper in my ear that you shouldn’t be drawing a sword in the battle tomorrow.” His eyes flicked to his left, and a colorless man, clad in the red and gold robes of a bishop, stepped from the shadows near the canvas wall.

  The bishop’s gray eyes had a cold glint, like the driving winds of a Highland winter. Annan met his gaze unflinching, but in the back of his mind something burned, like the touch of a spark on a bare finger.

  And then the bishop spoke, and Annan, shocked despite himself, was driven back sixteen years, the force of the memory like a blow to his chest.

  “You, a tourneyer, dare to think yourself worthy of this Holy War?”

  Father Roderic… Annan stared, the name rising to the tip of his tongue. He bit down hard. The bishop’s eyes held no recognition—and to change that would be to risk the life Annan had built for himself in those sixteen years.

  As if it was worth the saving.

  He had promised Marek he had not come to kill. But, at his side, his sword hand trembled, and in the back of his brain, the heat of battle kindled.

  Rising from the haze of his mind was St. Dunstan’s and all its dead brethren… Gethin, pale and unconscious, bleeding from wounds too numerous to count… Matthias with that unquenchable conviction blazing in his eyes…

  Annan clenched his hand into a fist.

  St. Dunstan’s was over, finished—a part of the unredeemable past. He would not resurrect it. He would not. Neither Roderic nor the Baptist nor any other face from that past could force him to do so.

  “You do not answer, M
aster Annan?”

  He glanced back at the king. “I did not hear the question.”

  “The question,” said Father Roderic, taking another step toward Annan, “is why an unworthy such as yourself dares to take the holy oath of a Crusader?”

  Annan filled his lungs and looked the man in the eyes. “I have taken no oath.”

  A murmur passed through the knights gathered behind him.

  Roderic’s eyebrows lifted, widening the dark sockets of his eyes. A puzzled expression flickered through his stony gaze and then passed.

  “You have not taken the oath?” Richard said. “And yet you dare to fight here upon the holy soil of our Lord?”

  “I am not here to Crusade against the Evil Prophet.”

  “Then why?” Hugh demanded. “There are no tourneys here for you to bare your teeth in.”

  “I go where I please, Norman.” The divot made by Hugh’s sword in his hipbone ached with the rising of every morning’s sun, but if Hugh believed that blow had subdued him in any way, he was so much the fool.

  Richard lifted a hand from the purple coverlet and waved it in a conciliatory gesture. “Spoken like a man of the sword. And as for the tourneys, I enjoy them greatly myself.” He leaned forward. “I should very much have liked to engage an arm as stout as Master Annan’s.” The torchlight flickered in his eyes. “Mayhap when I am well and the infidels are crushed beneath my destrier’s feet, we shall have such a contest, eh, Sir Knight?”

  “Your Majesty.” Father Roderic’s lips drew tight, as though with a purse string. “A vehement Scot, apathetic to our holy mission, may use such an opportunity to do you harm.” He straightened his shoulders, his hands sliding into their opposite sleeves. He glanced at Annan, eyebrows cocked.

  Beneath his pointed beard, Richard’s mouth hardened. “Do not seek to control my actions, Bishop.”

  “Of course not, Majesty.” Roderic’s gaze did not leave Annan’s face. “But perhaps we are mistaken in thinking this knight has any interest in plying his sword for a living?”

  Annan met his gaze and held it. Something in the way Roderic was asking the question… so unstudied as to be pointed… as if he were here tonight just to ask it.

  If Roderic hoped to recruit him for his Holy War, he miscalculated.

  “Indeed, I have an interest, Bishop.” He looked back at Richard. “The holy Father speaks the truth, Sire. Any contest between us could end no better than my meetings with Norman jongleurs posing as tourneymen.” He flicked his gaze in Hugh’s direction.

  Hugh straightened, and his right hand darted across his body for his sword. His dark eyes flashed, surpassing in venom even the oath upon his lips.

  “Have a care, Scot.” Richard’s own eyes narrowed in his wan face. “I would rather have my feet on Normandy soil than on any of your little isles.”

  “Then perhaps you should have remained there.”

  “By St. George! Is this your accustomed manner of dealing with kings?

  Annan held his ground, though he could feel several of the knights behind him take a step forward. He knew Richard would not place him under guard. In affairs of honor, the English king was famous both for his rages and his need for personal retribution.

  “Marcus Annan, if you remain in Acre when I have regained my bodily strength, I shall cleave you from skull to foot!”

  Hugh’s hand tightened on his sword. “Perhaps I shall save His Majesty the trouble.”

  “Or perhaps Heaven shall exact its own penance,” Roderic said. “Perhaps the Saracens will find him first.” The intense questioning look had not left his face. “Those who have not taken the holy oath have no place in a Crusade—especially if they bear the sins of an assassin.”

  The probing tone in his voice was unmistakable. But if Roderic sought to convict Annan as a tourneyer, he was going to be disappointed. Annan answered to no man.

  “God’s will be done.” His eyelid twitched. He turned back to the king and bowed from the waist as one knight might bow to another. “I have your leave to go?”

  Richard, blue eyes snapping, lay back on his cushions, the whiteness of his skin visible beneath his beard. He said nothing, only waved at the tent flap. The minstrel stepped into the opening to escort Annan back outside.

  As they walked into the cool darkness of the antechamber, voices erupted behind them. He had provided enough of a scandal to amuse them for tonight at least, though he would make certain he and Richard never met in the lists. Killing a king or being killed by one—both begot the same outcome. He hadn’t stayed alive this long by throwing himself against opponents who would win no matter how well he fought.

  The minstrel stopped at the exit, one hand on the tent flap’s cord. “You are either a brave man, Sir, or a very foolhardy one.”

  Annan ducked through the opening. “There is so much difference between them?”

  The minstrel snorted and turned back.

  High above the horizon, the moon drifted in a clear sky, its rays illuminating the hundreds of canvas tents, like so many white-bellied fish in a black sea. A breeze, cold compared to the afternoon’s stagnant air, tingled through the damp roots of Annan’s hair. Marek—and the shadow he was supposed to have been watching—was nowhere to be seen. Whatever precious amount of good sense knocked around in that lad’s brain was too often outweighed by his insatiable curiosity. And Marek wasn’t often curious of that which was harmless.

  In the distance, the glow of firelight and the murmur of laughter and song wafted across the camp. But round the king’s tent, there was nothing—only the breeze slapping against loose canvas.

  Annan’s frown deepened. That clumsy varlet would prove more trouble than he was worth yet. The thought of leaving Marek to find his own way home from whatever woe he’d got himself into sputtered long enough to give him pause. But Marek’s was a good sword to have guarding one’s back, if not quite good enough to keep himself out of trouble.

  He sighed and started down the narrow, twisting alley between tents.

  Perhaps he had made a mistake in coming here. It was always possible that the Baptist had whispered his hints about Roderic’s treachery with no other motive than forcing a battle with the bishop. It was a battle Annan had no desire to consummate.

  Self-mockery rose again within him. Here he was, hands red with the blood of innocents, forswearing to kill perhaps the one man who deserved to fall beneath his blade. He forced himself to keep an even stride.

  Ahead, a silhouette crouched against a wall of canvas, leaning forward in a hesitant manner that could only have belonged to Marek. Annan cast a glance ahead, trying to spot whomever, or whatever, Marek was trying so diligently to stay hidden from.

  Most likely, it had been their watcher from earlier in the evening. Annan wasn’t exactly surprised that Marek had managed to frighten him off. At least they wouldn’t have to deal with whatever the shadowy individual wanted. And Marek, apparently, had managed to keep himself out of trouble. That almost—almost—brought a smile to Annan’s face.

  He stepped behind Marek and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  Marek jumped and spun around. “Don’t do that to me! You know I have a nervous stomach.”

  “If yours is nervous, the rest of Christendom’s must be terrified.”

  “Chortle all you like, but you’ve no doubt gone and scared him off now.”

  “Him?” Annan peered down the dark alley, lit only by moonlight and a distant campfire’s dull orange. “Who?”

  “Him. You know, the bloke you told me to keep a watch on.”

  Nothing out of the ordinary appeared to Annan’s eye. He turned back, intent on a shortcut to their own tent. “Quite a few shadows out tonight. Certain you had the right one?”

  “How many shadows do you know who skulk around in long dark robes? An infidel spy’s probably what it was.”

  Annan canted his shoulders to squeeze through a narrow opening between tents. “I rather think the holy Crusaders have more reason to spy among th
emselves than do the Saracens.”

  “Aye, well, you just wait ‘til you get a better look at him. Then you’ll be thanking me for me quick eye.”

  “The only thing I’ll be thanking you for, young Marek, is to give your clacking jaws a rest.”

  “How’d your meeting wi’ His Royalty go?”

  “Two invitations for battle in the lists.”

  “Wha, only two?”

  “Watch the mouth, laddie.”

  “You didn’t accept, I hope? Do you have any idea what the penance would be for fighting in the lists here in the Holy Land?”

  They came around the edge of a tent, almost in view of their own camp, and Annan drew to a sharp halt.

  “Mark me,” Marek said, “if you kill a Christian here, you can bid farewell to your absolution— Oh—” That last sound meant that he had seen him too: a helmed knight standing in front of them, one hand propped on his sword.

  The man was easily a hand’s breadth shorter than Annan, but his build was broad and deep. Here was someone who had hefted a heavy weapon for the majority of his life. And he was obviously waiting for someone—them from all appearances.

  Without turning his head, Annan shot a quick glance to both the left and the right. If it became necessary, they could make an escape in either direction. He stood as he was, Marek behind him, waiting.

  The stranger stepped forward, and a shaft of moonlight illuminated the red cross on his white blouse. Annan’s chin lifted in recognition of the uniform. A Knight Templar. The sworn protectors of Jerusalem’s Temple had a murky fame, sometimes hailed for their fatalistic bravery, sometimes shunned for their intractable defiance to any authority save their own.

  “I seek Marcus Annan. You are he, are you not?”

  “Mayhap.”

  Behind Annan’s shoulder, Marek blew out a noisy breath. The irony was not lost on Annan either. The last time someone had asked that question, they’d barely escaped groveling in the damp murk of an Italian prison.

  The Templar lifted his chin, as if to see Annan better through the helmet’s eye slits. “My master bids me ask for your services. If that piques your interest, meet me before the night begins to wane on the shore near the women’s camp.”