Crusader Captive

The sun hanging low over the azure waters told Simon they were headed north. But north to where? Frowning, he struggled to draw on his hazy grasp of the geography of the East.

The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was little more than a narrow strip of land squeezed between desert, mountain and sea. A much-beleaguered strip, to be sure, wrested from its original inhabitants during the First Crusade a mere fifty years ago. From the bits and pieces he’d been able to gather from his captors, Simon knew that the city they’d just left lay somewhere close to the kingdom’s border. If this troop continued to ride north, they would come even closer.

Close enough that he might find sanctuary if he escaped. When he escaped, he amended fiercely. He hadn’t come all this way to spend the rest of his life in chains. He might be the fifth son of a minor and most disreputable baron, but he’d won more battles than he’d lost. This one, he vowed grimly, was not yet over.

His hope of escape rose with each thud of his mount’s hooves, only to be dashed some moments later like the waves crashing against the rocks below. News traveled so slowly between East and West. The infidels could well have taken the southern reaches of the Latin Kingdom, just as they’d taken the great principality of Edessa to the north, the loss of which had precipitated the Second Crusade. For all Simon knew, even that most sacred of all Christian sites, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, could have fallen.

The mere thought made his insides churn. He’d come so far. To fulfill his father’s vow and salvage his own soul, he must find some means to complete the last leg of his journey and join the ranks of Templars. He was sorting through various strategies when his new master stiffened in the saddle.

“Fatamids,” he grunted in a voice just loud enough to carry over the restless murmur of the sea.

Simon narrowed his eyes against the sun’s glare and studied the mounted patrol some distance ahead. Their conical helmets identified them as readily as the Arabic symbols on their blood-red pennant. He expected his new master to approach them, mayhap hand over more coins as tariff for using the road. To his amazement, the woman took charge.

“They fly the pennant of the sultan’s personal regiment,” he heard her mutter. “If they stop us, we won’t be able to bribe them as we did the guards at the city gates.”

“Especially if they recognize you, milady,” the man beside her agreed grimly.

So this veiled female was a Frank, and one of high rank. Simon barely had time to absorb those astounding facts before she cast a look over her shoulder. He caught a glimpse of brown eyes blazing with determination as she measured the mettle of her escort.

“I know these hills and orchards well,” she told them in an urgent tone. “Guy of Bures held them in fief before he lost them to the Fatamids. I spent nigh on one summer here with Guy’s wife and daughters. Follow where I lead.”

Before any could protest, she tugged on the reins and dug her heels into her mount’s sides. The sleek Arabian leaped off the road. Its rider canted well forward in her saddle and sent it racing toward the olive trees that climbed the steep hillside.

Cursing, the man Simon now recognized as the woman’s lieutenant dragged his mount’s head around and charged after her. Simon was forced to cling to the saddle like a hapless monkey as he and the rest of the troop followed. Gnarled, twisted tree trunks blackened by age flashed by. Ancient boughs feathered with silver leaves whipped past. He ducked two branches, was lashed by a third.

Over the hammer of iron-shod hooves on the rocky soil, he heard a distant shout. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that the sultan’s troop was giving chase. His trained eye saw at once it was well armed and well horsed.

The fire of battle rose in him. His manacled hands curled tight, as if to grip a lance or sword. He told himself he should care not whose hands he passed into. A slave was a slave was a slave. Yet everything in him rebelled at the idea of being caught weaponless if there was to be a battle. Cursing, he swung forward in his saddle—and felt his heart near jump out of his throat.

They’d reached the crest of the hill. In an instant of sheer disbelief, Simon saw it was slashed by what looked like a bottomless crevasse. The gaping fissure stretched in either direction as far as he could see. And the only means to cross it was a wood-and-hemp bridge that looked as though it would not support a shoat, let alone a horse and rider.

The female in the lead dragged on the reins and brought her mount to a snorting, skittering stop. When she threw her leg over the pommel and slid from the saddle, Simon was sure she meant to surrender. Instead, she issued a hurried assurance.

“The bridge will take us. I crossed it more than once with Sir Guy and his wife. Wait until I gain the other side, then follow one at a time.”

“No, lady!” Her sun-weathered lieutenant kicked free of the stirrups. Dismounting, he shouldered her aside. “I will go first.”

Simon’s breath stuck to the back of his throat as the man led his mount onto the swaying bridge. The damned thing looked as though it would give way at any second, taking man and beast with it.

Against all odds, they made it to the far side. And no sooner had they reached solid ground than the woman followed. She crossed safely, as did one of the turbaned outriders.

That left Simon and two others. The first dragged him out of his saddle. The second flung his mount’s reins at him and drew a curved scimitar.

“Go,” he ordered, his voice low and guttural with menace.

Simon had no fear of heights. He’d climbed many a siege tower and fought atop high castle walls. Yet he held back, debating between evils.

He could swing his wrist chain, knock the scimitar aside, and take to the trees in hopes of escaping both this troop and the one charging up the hill.

Or he could put his fate in the hands of the female who stood on the other side, her gaze once again locked with his.

Those fierce brown eyes challenged him. Bedeviled him. Lured him to God knew what fate. With the grim sensation that he was putting more than his life in this most strange and unaccountable female’s hands, Simon led the dun-colored barb onto the bridge.

It sagged under their weight, but held. Simon forced himself to place one foot before the other and kept his eyes on the lady. Neither he nor she seemed to draw breath until he gained the far side.

As soon as he had, the remaining two followed. All the while, the pursuing troop drew closer. They were almost within arrow range when the grizzled lieutenant drew his sword. Two whacks severed the right-side ropes anchoring the bridge to deep-sunk posts. The planks tipped on their side, swinging like a drunken sailor caught in the rigging.

“They won’t cross now,” the lieutenant said with fierce satisfaction.

“No, they won’t,” his lady agreed gleefully.

With lithe grace and a swirl of her voluminous cloak, she grasped her saddle pommel and swung into the seat unaided.

“To horse,” she ordered over the thunder of approaching hooves. “Let us home to Fortemur.”

Chapter Two

By the time the small cavalcade thundered up to the barbican of a massive castle overlooking the sea, the sun was a flaming ball of red and Simon had to struggle to hold his head upright.

As best he could recall, all he’d eaten since being dragged off the ship two days ago were a few wormy crusts of bread. Worse than the hunger that gnawed at his insides, though, was the burning cauldron of his back. His captors’ lead-tipped whips had cut almost to the bone.

Yet training and instinct refused to die. With an iron effort of will, he blanked his mind to the pain that ate near into his bones and fixed his gaze on the black-and-red pennants flying above the keep’s towers. He didn’t recognize the device on them, nor the coat of arms carved into stone above the gate of the outer barbican.

When they passed through the gates and crossed the drawbridge, he acknowledged grimly that the fortress well deserved its name. Fortemur. Strong walls. It had those aplenty. And guardsmen, as well. He glimpsed pairs of lookouts in the dozen or more towers interspaced along the walls, while more pikemen in red-and-black tabards patrolled the walks between.

The towers were of a unique design that owed as much to the East as to the West. Almost like the minarets that called the infidels to worship. They gave the massive keep an almost fanciful air that belied its well-ordered defenses.

Its outer and inner curtain walls were spaced well apart, he noted. Gardens and orchards flowered in the low-lying land between them. They would feed the defenders during a lengthy siege. Until the outer curtain was breached, at least. Then, Simon surmised, the defenders would open the sea gates and flood the orchards to keep attackers at bay.

He gave the yards the same reluctant approval. Both inner and outer bailey teamed with activity from the dovecote to the farrier’s forge to the kitchens that pumped the tantalizing odor of roasted meat into the air. Simon’s stomach cried for a slice of whatever sizzled on the spits as the troop halted by the stables and the lady slid from her saddle.

She spared him only a glance before throwing back her hood and issuing a low order to her lieutenant. “See him fed and bathed, then bring him to my solar.”

Simon barely heard her. Although the silken veil still covered most of her face, he couldn’t help but gape at the thick braid draped over one shoulder. It was so pale a gold as to be almost luminous. Like winter sunlight shimmering on a frozen lake. Simon had never seen the like.

With some effort, he dragged his gaze from her to her lieutenant. He’d shoved back his hood as well. The man’s weathered face owed more to age than the sun, Simon now saw. Silver tinted his hair at the temples. And the scar running from his ear to the neck of his tunic bespoke a man who’d engaged in more than one battle. Some, obviously, with the female he now faced.

“Do you want him with the wrist cuffs on or off?” he queried in a voice tinged with unmistakable disapproval.

She directed her attention to Simon and raked him again from head to foot. As he had on the auction block, he stiffened under her assessing look.

By the bones of Saint Bartholomew, she was a forward wench. The kind whose bold glance would have raised an answering response from him in other times, other circumstances. He’d bedded his share and more of saucy maids and painted, panting ladies before his father’s dying vow had bound him to a life of poverty, obedience and chastity.

Yet he’d never encountered a female such as this one. Strong enough to ride for hours without so much as slumping in the saddle. Strong-willed enough to issue orders to the battle-scarred veteran who awaited her command.

“Off,” she told him. “But you have my leave to subdue him if he offers violence.”

“He’d best not.”