Crusader Captive Read online

  “And will the Patriarch convince my lord and husband to let me confess my sins to a priest? I’m told the only males his wives may have discourse with are eunuchs.”

  She realized her mistake the moment the words passed her lips. Melisande seized on them immediately.

  “So it’s discourse you want, is it?” Her shrewd eyes raked Jocelyn’s cheek and chin. “Is that what you did with the knight pledged to the Templars? The one I suspect left those marks on your face?”

  “Majesty…”

  “Surely you know once your knight takes his vows he cannot contact you again, much less have discourse.”

  Jocelyn could not falter now. Simon’s life hung in the balance. Shrugging, she tried to deflect the arrow aimed at him.

  “The king himself requested de Rhys continue as captain of my guard. Until then, he must needs speak with me.”

  “Speak with?” the queen echoed slowly, dangerously. “Or give you the means to escape this marriage you so despise. Have you laid with him?”

  “No!”

  Her response was too swift, too forceful, and spoke more of desperation than indignation. Melisande saw through it immediately.

  “Tell me, girl. Are you maid or not?”

  “I…”

  “Tell me,” the queen ordered, her eyes blazing, “else I will summon my physician and have him examine you before a tentful of witnesses.”

  “No, I am not a maid.”

  Throwing aside her goblet, Melisande lashed out with an openhanded slap that sent Jocelyn staggering backward.

  “You fool! You headstrong, selfish fool. You know how much we need the army that the emir brings with him. You’ve not only put our kingdom at risk, you’ve put de Rhys’s head on the block.”

  “It wasn’t him! I swear by all that is holy.”

  Until that moment Jocelyn didn’t know—couldn’t know—how deeply she held Simon in her heart. Before, her only concerns were to spare herself a loathsome marriage and him the king’s wrath. Now she would consign her very soul to the devil to keep him safe.

  “I gave myself to Geoffrey,” she said desperately.

  “Geoffrey?”

  “Geoffrey de Lusignan. You must remember him. My grandsire arranged for us to wed after the first lord I was betrothed to fell in battle.”

  The queen’s brows snapped together. “Aye, I remember de Lusignan.”

  “He was young.” Near tripping over her tongue, Jocelyn wove a hurried web of truths and lies. “Young and merry. And so handsome his mere kiss threw me into girlish raptures. I…I laid with him before he rode into battle for the last time.”

  “You were but a child then! You couldn’t have celebrated more than ten name days.”

  “Eleven. I’d celebrated my eleventh name day. Although my grandsire decreed me still too young to consummate the marriage, I’d started my courses. I was a woman in the eyes of God and the law. You yourself were only a year older when you wed the Count of Anjou.”

  The pointed reminder of the queen’s turbulent marriage made Melisande stiffen.

  “The difference,” she said frigidly, “is that I did my duty and wed where my father said I must. As will you, Jocelyn, if the emir will still have you.”

  “Majesty, I implore you…”

  No!” She flung up a hand. “Don’t say another word. I cannot allow you to jeopardize everything I’ve worked for these many years. We need this alliance most desperately to protect our western borders. So, too, do we need the army the emir brings to help us retake Blanche Garde.”

  Jocelyn could see in her face that the happiness of one royal ward was a small price to pay for the safety of an entire kingdom. Melisande and her son would throw her to the wolves to seal this fragile alliance. She could only hope that the emir would repudiate the proposed marriage once he learned she was no maid.

  If he learned.

  With a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach, she realized neither the king nor his mother was beyond sending her to the emir despite her altered state. God alone knew what might happen if Ali ben Haydar took her to bed and discovered he’d been duped.

  As if echoing her thoughts, Melisande pointed to the tent flap. “Get you gone. I must think how best to deal with this turn of events.”

  “Please, Majesty…”

  “Go.”

  Sick at heart, Jocelyn got to her feet. The deepening purple haze that greeted her when she emerged made her blink in confusion. Her mind was in such turmoil that she’d lost all sense of time.

  Was it just a short while since Simon had responded to her taunt? A half a turn of the hourglass since she’d felt his mouth on hers? It might have happened in another lifetime.

  Desolation filled her as she looked around the bustling camp with unseeing eyes. She felt lost. Defeated. And alone. So very alone.

  The waves of self-pity that washed through her were as uncharacteristic as they were unwelcome. Then she remembered that she wasn’t the only one caught in this damnable coil.

  Had the queen believed the lies she’d spouted? Was Simon safe, or would Melisande call him to account for the marks he’d made on her?

  If she did, Jocelyn knew with sickening certainty, Simon would speak the truth. His honor wouldn’t allow him to do otherwise. Oh, he wouldn’t reveal what had happened the night she’d brought him back from El-Arish. He’d sworn never to speak of that and he wouldn’t. His honor wouldn’t allow it.

  But he’d sworn no such oath about their time together in the crystal cave. She hadn’t thought to ask it of him. If pressed, he might speak the truth about that to save her from a marriage he knew she despised.

  And he would die for it.

  Terror closed her throat. She had to warn him. Convince him somehow, someway, to deny that they’d coupled. Or at least remain mute. He could do that, she thought as her fear for him clogged her lungs. He could say nothing at all and, by his silence, acquiesce in her lie.

  Lifting her skirts, she began to run, and startled faces turned when she passed. Gruff voices called out to her.

  “Milady!”

  “What’s amiss?”

  She didn’t get far. Less than twenty paces from the queen’s tent a familiar figure appeared in the deepening dusk.

  “Hugh!” Near sobbing with relief at the sight of her most trusted confidant and adviser, she flung herself at his chest. “When did you arrive?”

  “Just now. I brought Sir Guy, and the full complement of knights and men-at-arms that you ordered. De Rhys told me I would find you here, so I came straightaway in search of you.”

  When she continued to cling to him, he patted her back awkwardly.

  “What’s amiss, lady? Why do you weep?”

  “I…I confessed to the queen.”

  “The saints preserve us! You told her everything?”

  “Yes. No.” She fought down the fear that threatened to choke her and shoved away from the comfort of his arms. “I let her know I’m no longer a maid, but I said it was Geoffrey de Lusignan I laid with.”

  “De Lusignan!” Sir Hugh’s brows soared above his weathered face. “You were scarce out of short skirts when he fell in battle. The queen could not have believed he bedded you.”

  “She did. She must.” She gripped his arms and dug her fingers into his mail. “You must tell Simon, Hugh. Now, before she questions him.”

  Astonishment at her bold-faced lie gave way to confusion. The castellan shook his head and tried to make sense of her breathless disclosures.

  “I don’t understand. If you told Melisande you laid with Geoffrey de Lusignan, why would she question de Rhys?”

  “I met with him earlier.” Her hands went to her cheeks. “His…his beard scraped my face. The queen saw the marks and guessed their source.”

  “Saints preserve us, Jocelyn!”

  “I know,” she said miserably. “I’ve twisted matters beyond measure. Just tell Simon what I have done, Hugh, before the queen summons him to her tent. Convince him to put a
side his thrice-damned honor and go along with my lie.”

  He gave her a look she’d never before seen on his face. Was it disapproval? Disappointment? A combination of both, she realized as he shook his head again.

  “Never did I think to hear the Lady of Fortemur scorn a man for holding to his honor.”

  “It could well put his head on the block!”

  Breathing hard and fast, she fought the almost overwhelming feeling of despair over the morass she’d plunged both herself and Simon into.

  “The queen repeated yet again how much she and the king desire an alliance with the emir. If the alliance falls through… If Simon shares the blame with me, he’ll feel the full weight of their displeasure.”

  “You knew that before you drew him into your web of deceit.”

  “I thought I could preserve his identity! I thought he would be well gone from my life before I revealed my altered state to the king and his mother. Nor,” she added, sick at heart, “did I imagine that my scheme would put at risk his intent to join the Knights Templar.”

  Bernard de Tremelay might field an army of knights who owed allegiance to none but him and the Pope, but the Templars’ very existence was tied to the survival of Baldwin’s kingdom. The Grand Master would back the king and his mother in whatever fate they decided for Simon.

  “It’s a fine coil you’ve landed de Rhys in, Jocelyn.”

  “I know,” she said again, hanging her head.

  The weight of Hugh’s disapproval was crushing. Her fear for Simon outweighed it by a thousand measures.

  “Please, speak with him.”

  “And say what?”

  “Tell him I cannot have him on my conscience. Tell him he must not admit we laid together or…”

  Or what? What could induce Simon to lie, or at least keep silent?

  “Or I will say he seeks only to protect me. That, in truth, I made up the whole tale of surrendering my maidenhead to escape a marriage the queen knows I despise.”

  “That’s easily enough disproved.”

  “Mayhap. Mayhap not.”

  The bitter thoughts that had followed her out of the queen’s tent came back with brutal force.

  “As anxious as Melisande is to see this alliance done, she could well instruct the king’s physician to confirm my virgin’s shield is still intact. She could even have one of her ladies show me how to weep and writhe in pain and cut myself so that I bleed profusely when the emir takes me to bed.”

  “Jocelyn!”

  “What? Don’t say it can’t be done. Shall I tell you which of my ladies used pig’s blood to stain the sheets on her wedding night?”

  That silenced him.

  “Go to Simon, Hugh. Please! Tell him I will not have him bear the consequences of my rash acts.”

  The aged knight’s face was little more than a blur in the deepening dusk, but Jocelyn saw his jaw work from side to side.

  How had she brought him and Simon and herself to such a coil? When had matters become so tangled that not even an argonaut’s sword could slice through the knots?

  Shamed to her very soul, she stretched out a hand. The sudden ball of fire that launched into the sky behind him made her jerk it back.

  “What…?”

  The ball soared high in the purple sky, trailing a tail of brilliant sparks. Jocelyn recognized it for what it was immediately.

  “Hugh!” she gasped. “Look!”

  The knight spun around and spit out a violent oath. Like her, he needed only a glance to grasp what that blazing ball portended.

  “Greek fire,” he snarled through bared teeth.

  The mere name was enough to inspire terror. First used by the Byzantines to repel Saracen attacks against Constantinople, the fiery projectiles had since become a staple of both besieging and besieged armies. Soldiers sprayed by the combination of flaming resin, quicklime and sulphur died most agonizing deaths. Wooden siege engines and towers burned to cinders.

  But no siege engines had as yet been built. No wooden towers were ready to roll into position. And these balls of flame didn’t come from the direction of Blanche Garde. Nor, Jocelyn realized in a moment of sheer panic, from the king’s encamped army.

  Another blazed into the sky. Then another, and another. In the next heartbeat, they crashed to earth right in the center of the camp. Screams rent the night. A tent became a flaming pyre.

  They were being attacked from the rear! By the very army that was supposed to join forces with Baldwin’s!

  The realization burst on Jocelyn with the same searing impact as the projectiles now raining down on the camp. She had time for just that one, terrible thought before Hugh lunged forward and grasped her wrist.

  Pivoting violently on one heel, he swung her like a weighted stone at the end of a tether. Shrieking, Jocelyn flew through the air. She hit with a force that knocked the air from her lungs. At the same instant, a fiery ball crashed to earth just paces from where she’d stood.

  Where her castellan still stood.

  “Nooooooo!”

  The scream ripped from her throat as tongues of fire spewed in all directions and turned everything they touched into a torch.

  “Hugh!”

  Panting, sobbing, propelled by sheer panic, she got her feet under her and thrust upward. By then her most trusted friend and adviser was ablaze. Fire licked at his boots, his surcoat, even his hair.

  Chaos reigned and screams now filled the night. Ignoring all agonized cries but Sir Hugh’s, Jocelyn looked frantically for a cloak or blanket. When she saw nothing close at hand, she dragged up the hem of her bliaut. Water wouldn’t douse the fire, but maybe she could smother it with her robe.

  She tried. She tried most desperately. Throwing herself to her knees, she slapped at Hugh’s writhing form with the folds of her gown. Heat singed her face. The stench of burning flesh seared her nostrils.

  She couldn’t beat down the flames. They ate right through her bliaut and blistered her hands. In desperation, she screamed for help.

  “Someone! Anyone! I beg of you, attend to me!”

  Her frantic cries went unheeded. And no wonder. The scene that met her frantic eyes could have come from the lowest reaches of hell.

  The unexpected attack had thrown the king’s camp into mindless panic. Foot soldiers ran in every direction. Pages cowered in terror. Knights screamed at squires to fetch swords and shields and horses. All the while death rained down around them.

  She was still on her knees, her breath rasping raw in her throat and her heart near stuttering with fear, when she heard her name shouted above the tumult.

  “Jocelyn!”

  She raised smoke-seared eyes and saw Simon charging through the flames. He’d drawn his sword. Donned his helm. Taken up his shield. Unlike so many others in the king’s camp, he was prepared to battle whatever foe might appear through the carnage.

  Jocelyn near wept with relief. He would save Sir Hugh. He must!

  Yet she knew from the moment he halted beside her that he couldn’t work miracles. She couldn’t miss the grim assessment in his eyes as they skimmed over Hugh’s charred flesh. That one glance said her desperate efforts had gone for naught.

  “He’s beyond help.”

  “No!”

  “He’s dead, Jocelyn, and you must get to shelter.”

  “I can’t leave him. Simon! Hear me! I can’t leave him.”

  He didn’t waste time on debate. Reaching down, he pulled her to her feet and dragged her away from the smoking body. She fought him every step of the way, but she might have been a butterfly beating its wings against a steel cage. Ignoring her frantic protests, he raised his shield above his head to protect them both as best he could from flying tongues of fire.

  In the midst of her fury and fear she heard a drawn-out hiss above her. It was a low warning—their only warning—before the fires of hell consumed them both.

  Chapter Eleven

  The blazing ball tore off the top of the queen’s tent. Spewing fire an
d death, it crashed to earth some yards beyond. The tent’s blue cloth walls shook violently and collapsed in on themselves. Flames were already consuming the gilded swans when Jocelyn beat on Simon’s arm and screamed to be heard over the uproar.

  “The queen! Simon! The queen’s inside her tent!”

  He didn’t hesitate. Throwing her to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs, he covered her with his shield.

  “Stay here!”

  Like a turtle in its shell, Jocelyn wiggled around frantically on her belly until she faced the now-flaming tent. Terror consumed her while she watched Simon swing his sword two-handed to hack through fallen poles and burning cloth.

  He would burn. His surcoat would flame. His face and hands would scorch. His chain mail would heat, and he would roast alive. She couldn’t bear to crouch and tremble like a blancmange while he fought his way into that inferno. Throwing off the heavy shield, she leaped to her feet and screamed with all the power of her heat-and smoke-seared lungs.

  “To the queen! To the queen!”

  Her frantic cry brought Melisande’s terror-stricken lady-in-waiting running from the pile of equipment she’d crouched behind. Along the way Lady Sybil rallied several cowering, quaking pages.

  Jocelyn’s frantic cry also caught the ear of a knight about to throw himself aboard his hastily saddled destrier. His head jerked around and horror filled his face beneath his helm. He shouted something to his squire and raced toward the queen’s tent. Two of the king’s guard came running at the same time.

  Then the king himself appeared! Baldwin was mounted on his warhorse and had a small troop of knights scrambling to follow him.

  “My lady mother?” he shouted at Jocelyn.

  “She’s within!”

  With a vicious oath, he kicked free of the stirrups and would have thrown himself from the saddle if a terrifying apparition hadn’t stumbled from the burning tent.

  It was a man, or so Jocelyn thought. Covered from head to foot by one of the thick Persian carpets that had graced the floor of the tent. Flames were already licking at the rug, making it appear as though he wore a cloak of fire.