Crusader Captive

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.”

Simon knew the gruff response was more for his benefit than hers. She knew it, as well. She turned away with a nod, then swung back.

“Be sure to bring him to me by way of the tower stairs.”

“I will.”

Simon’s gaze followed her as she lifted her skirts and stepped around the offal inevitable in a stable yard teeming with horses, swine and chickens. She had a fine-turned ankle, he couldn’t help but note before he faced her lieutenant once again.

“I am Hugh of Poitiers,” the man informed him. “Once in service to Eleanor of Aquitaine. For these past two decades and more, I am sworn to the holder of these lands.”

“Who is he?”

“She.” Sir Hugh tipped his head to the retreating female. “Lady Jocelyn is my liege.”

Simon’s glance whipped to the lady, then back again. “She holds this keep? She has no husband? No father or brother?”

“She has me,” the knight snapped.

“I meant no offense. But a fortress of this size…”

When his glance swept the well-ordered yards again, Sir Hugh offered a terse explanation.

“Lady Jocelyn’s grandfather died this Michaelmas past, before he could negotiate a suitable marriage for her. King Baldwin took her in as his ward and appointed one of his own men as steward. The fool likes to believe he holds sway here. I would suggest you do not make the same mistake.”

So that was the way of it. The lady was an heiress. A prize to be given to a faithful vassal. From the looks of this keep, she was a rich prize indeed.

Simon knew well—all Christendom did—that the constant struggle to hold on to the territories wrested from the Saracens in the First Crusade had caused many a lord to fall on the field of battle. Their sons likewise often went down to the sword or lance. As a result, great fiefs devolved on female heirs here in the East far more often than in the West. Tales abounded of rich widows being given to new husbands almost before they’d buried their last.

Such rumors had lured many a landless knight and adventurous man-at-arms to seek both a bride and a fortune here in Outremer. Simon himself had considered doing so, but he would not now make a fortune nor take a bride in this wild land. Both were forbidden to Knights Templar. All they took in spoils, all revenues they gained through their vast holdings both here and in the West, belonged to the order.

“How are you known?” Sir Hugh wanted to know.

“I am Simon de Rhys, fifth son of Gervase de Rhys.”

“Gervase de Rhys.” The knight’s brow wrinkled. “What have I heard of him?”

That he was foresworn of his honor, his lands and the respect of all men, Simon thought bitterly. That he whored and guzzled ale and took by guile what he could not take by the strength of his arm. It wasn’t by chance that Simon had ridden away from his sire’s crumbling keep soon as he’d been strong enough to swing a sword and not returned until summoned to the man’s deathbed.

His shoulders stiffening, he answered only, “I know not.”

“How old are you?”

“Six and twenty.”

Hugh’s eyes narrowed. “Have you won your spurs?”

“Ten years ago.”

“So young?” Surprised, the scarred warrior raked him with a sharp look. “By whose hand were you knighted?”

“Henri, Duke of Angoulême.”

“Ah, him I have heard of. He was a good man. If he knighted you, you must have won his respect.”

Hugh stroked his chin for several moments, his piercing gaze seeming to see into Simon’s soul.

“I heartily disapprove of what Lady Jocelyn has in store for you,” he said at last, “but understand why she does it. Whether you fall in with her plans or no, hear me well, Simon de Rhys. I will rip you and string you up by your guts should you harm one hair on her head.”

“I—”

He flung up a mailed fist. “I care not what you say or think! Only that you know your life is forfeit if you harm her. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Then let us get you fed and bathed, as my lady commanded. Then I will take you to her solar.”

Jocelyn paced the spacious tower room, her nerves strung so tight she feared they would snap.

Until her grandfather’s death she’d shared a bedchamber with the other unmarried ladies of the keep. Four, sometimes six, of them had slept in the curtained bed, the rest on the cushioned benches they sat on during the day to sew or read or strum their lutes. Now that she’d moved into the lord’s chamber, Jocelyn enjoyed the almost unheard-of luxury of privacy. That privacy allowed her to do what she was determined to do this night!

She’d planned her campaign with the same care Sir Hugh did an attack on enemy strongholds. With the sun about to set, she’d ordered candles and a fire laid. Stout wood shutters now shut out the night and the chill breeze coming off the sea. Rich tapestries kept drafts from seeping through the stone walls, while thick carpets covered the wooden floorboards. The chamber was warm and comfortable, yet her nerves danced and her skin shivered as though she was clothed in nothing but a thin shift.

Yet just the opposite was true! She’d thrown off her hooded cloak and sweat-stained riding gown, washed, and dressed again with great care. A simple linen band drawn across the top of her head and under her chin held back the unbound hair that now fell loose to her waist. Over a finely pleated linen undertunic she wore a bliaut of deepest rose that laced at the sides and boasted sleeves so long their tips trailed the carpets. A broad belt embroidered with gold thread girdled her hips. From it dangled her needle case, her sewing scissors in their leather holder, a pierced gold scent-ball filled with costly musk and the heavy ring of keys that marked her as chatelaine.

Once properly garbed, she’d dismissed her ladies. Sent away even the young page who customarily slept on a pallet outside her door. Jocelyn wanted none to know what passed between her and the man she would soon face.

It was mad, this scheme. As Sir Hugh had pointed out so forcefully, she courted the wrath of both King Baldwin and his still-powerful mother, Queen Melisande. Yet she could not, would not, be shut away in a harem. She was too used to governing the lands and castle that were her birthright.

She knew the match with the Emir of Damascus was a brilliant one in terms of political alliances. By giving her to ben Haydar, Baldwin would secure the western borders of his kingdom while he battled the incursions of the Seljuk Turks to the north and the Fatamids to the south.

The emir, in turn, would gain access to the sea for the heavily laden caravans that crossed his vast holdings. In addition to land-passage fees, caravaneers would now have to pay him exorbitant port taxes as well. By taking Jocelyn to wife, the emir would double the gold and silver pouring into his coffers.

She would not be the first Frankish lady given to an Eastern lord to achieve a political or strategic advantage. The Pope himself had endorsed the marriage of Margaret of Cilicia and the Sultan of Rum to secure a buffer between Constantinople and the ever more powerful Turks. Like Lady Margaret, Jocelyn would be allowed to follow the tenets of her own faith. That the emir had solemnly promised.

And no wonder, she thought scornfully. The man took wives and concubines of every color and creed. He cared not what gods they prayed to as long as they came fresh and virginal to his bed.

Jocelyn wasn’t foolish enough to think she could govern her fate completely. She knew she would have to bow her head and accept some other husband of the king’s choosing. Any other husband, as long as he was of her faith and strong enough to hold Fortemur. But she would not—

The rap of knuckles on the tower door cut off her turbulent thoughts. Her breath caught. Her heart pounded. It was now, she thought with a flutter of panic, or never.

Now! It must be now.

The jewel-toned carpeting that could be purchased for a handful of beasants in every Eastern bazaar muffled her footsteps as she crossed the spacious chamber. Her hand shaking, she turned the iron key in the lock and tugged open the door to the tower stairs.

The winding stone staircase was narrow and dark, lit only by a single flickering torch set in an iron bracket and the moonbeams that came through the arrow slits. Yet there was light enough and more for her to make out Sir Hugh’s disapproving expression and the tight, unreadable one on the face of the man with him.

Jocelyn stepped back to allow them entry to her chamber. The captive entered first. His matted, filthy beard had been cut off and the bristles pumiced away. His equally foul hair had been washed until it glinted a dull gold. He wore clean breeks and a coarse wool tunic, Jocelyn saw.

Standing this close to her, he loomed as tall as the cedars from the forests of Lebanon. Her airy chamber seemed to shrink in size as he took a stance before her, his feet planted wide and his gaze intent on her face. Now that she could see his features clearly, she found him more daunting than she would admit, even to herself. His nose was flattened at the bridge, as though someone had taken a mailed fist to it. His mouth was set, his chin square.

And those eyes. Sweet heaven, those eyes! Fierce and unblinking and as deep a blue as the sea, they regarded Jocelyn with both suspicion and disdain.

“Have you told him what I require of him?” she asked Sir Hugh.

“No. But I have told him that he will not live to see the dawn if he does ill by you.” Her faithful castellan hesitated a moment. “He’s been hard used, lady. I had a man-at-arms spread unguent on his cuts but Lady Constance should physik them afore they—”

“I thank you, Sir Hugh, but my hurts can be tended to later.” Those blue eyes speared into Jocelyn. “First I would know why a Frankish lady must needs purchase a captive to do her bidding. What is this urgent task you require of me?”

“It’s a simple matter.” Her fists balled inside her long sleeves. “Once it’s done, you may leave Fortemur a free man, well horsed and supplied with sword, lance and shield from the castle armory.”

He did not leap at the offer. Jocelyn would not have trusted him if he had. She’d developed keen instincts over many years of judging the men and women who served her and her grandfather before her. This one, she’d sensed from the moment he’d stood tall and defiant on the auction block, would break before he’d bend.

Pray God that held true for his oath once given!

“If this matter is as simple as you say,” he asked with an inbred wariness she could not but credit, “why don’t you set one of your own men to it?”

“I’ll explain in a moment. But first I must have your oath that you will never speak of what happens here tonight.”

“You would trust the oath of a man you bought for a few pieces of gold?”

“Yes.” Only because she had no choice. “Do you so swear?”

His answer came slowly and with great reluctance, but it came. “I do.”

A great weight seemed to press on Jocelyn’s chest. Her glance shifted to Sir Hugh. He pleaded with her.

“You need not do this,” he growled.

“I have no choice.” She gathered her courage and her dignity. “Leave us, please.”

“My lady…”

“Leave us.”

For a moment she thought he would refuse. But he’d served both her and her grandfather for so many years that he finally acquiesced. Not without a final word of warning for the captive, however.

“I’ll wait in the guardroom below. One scream, one shout from Lady Jocelyn will signal your death.”

She stood silent until the thud of his footsteps on the stairs faded before she closed the tower door. Sir Hugh would see none came up to disturb them, so she didn’t turn the key in the lock. When she faced the captive again, she had to struggle to keep the nervousness from her voice.

“How are you called?”

“Simon de Rhys.”

“Are you knight or mercenary?”

“Knight. What do you want of me?”

Jocelyn took both her temper and her decisiveness from the grandsire who’d raised her. She’d ordered women flogged and men branded for a variety of crimes without hesitation. Thus she bristled at his tone, yet found herself dancing around his brusque question.

A small, mocking corner of her mind called her a coward. She’d planned this night down to the veriest detail. Had risked her life and those of her escort to set her plan in motion. Yet now that she’d reached the crucial point in her scheme, she found herself hesitating.

“Would you have wine?” she asked, gesturing to the table set close to the stone hearth. “Or dates?”

“No. What do you want of me?”

Very well. He wished it without bard or barding. So be it.

“I want you to lie with me.”

He reared back. “What say you?”

“I want you in my bed this night, and this night only. Then you will leave Fortemur with all I promised you.”

Brows bleached by the sun to the color of sanded oak snapped together. Suspicion warred with incredulity in his face. “Why?”

“The reason is not your concern,” she said haughtily. “Only that I wish to be rid of my maidenhead.”

He looked her up and down with an insolence that brought the blood rushing to her cheeks.

“You don’t need to purchase a stud for that. One of your men-at-arms could do the deed for you. Or any crone with a broomstick, for that matter.”

The crude suggestion brought her chin up. Crows would peck out her eyes before she would admit she’d considered both such desperate courses! But if asked—when asked by the king—she must be able to swear by all she held holy that she’d lain with a man and was no longer virgin.

When that happened, she fully expected Baldwin to unleash the full fury of his wrath. Although he was but a few years older than Jocelyn herself, the king clung as tenaciously to his birthright as she did to hers. Whoever thwarted his plans for an alliance with the emir by taking his ward’s maidenhead would suffer mightily for it. She would not allow any of the men who served her so loyally to take the blame. That would be hers and hers alone to bear.

“The why and how of this are not your concern, de Rhys. Only the deed itself.”

His lip curled. “So you would barter a man’s freedom for a rut?”

“You’ll have your freedom, whether we rut or not,” Jocelyn returned stiffly. “But it will take you at least a year to earn back the price I paid for you. So the choice is yours, de Rhys. One night in my bed, or twelve months as my vassal?”

Twelve months! Simon’s gut twisted. Twelve months, and his father would most like be dead of the wasting sickness that had laid him low.

If Gervase de Rhys went to his Maker, would Simon then be free of the pledge binding him to the Knights Templar? Free to win lands of his own? Free to wed, or at least bed for more than a single night, a female such as this one?

It had been months since he’d had a woman. Although he hadn’t yet been formally inducted into the ranks of the Knights Templar, he’d prepared himself both mentally and physically for the demands so unique to their order.

The great keeps that the Templars held here and in the West served as both monasteries and cavalry barracks. Within them, the members of the order lived as pious monks shed of all but the humblest robes and sandals. When called to war, however, they took up sword and shield and faced death with indifference. They were the first to attack, the last to retreat. And whether at prayer or at war, they sought at all times to rise above the sins of the flesh.

Simon knew he would have to struggle mightily with that. He was a man, after all. One with strong appetites.

And the lady of Fortemur was much a woman, he acknowledged. That silken hair. Those ripe lips. The strong, firm chin now raised to such a stubborn angle.

Lust for her rose in him, so fast and fierce it seared his veins. Or mayhap it was pain that licked at his back like tongues of flame. The source of the heat didn’t matter. Whatever the reason for it, Simon wanted to give this pale-haired witch what she asked from him.

The man in him ached to tear her laces and strip away her gown. To bare her breasts and belly and flanks to the firelight. Drag her down to the carpet and thrust into her with all the fury that had built in him since his capture.

He wanted her, but he would not have her.

“I cannot bed you, lady, this night or any other. I am pledged to the Church.”

“The Church!”

The color bled from her cheeks. Dismay filled her eyes. Gasping, she dropped to her knees and made the sign of the cross. Once, twice, in quick succession.

“Forgive me, Father! I did not know…I could not know…”

Shame suffused her face and voice. Head bowed, she addressed him in a voice rife with mortification.

“Are you Templar or Hospitaller or parish priest come on pilgrimage?”

Simon couldn’t lie, but the truth tasted like gall on his lips. “I am none of those. Yet.”

Her head came up. “How say you?”

“I am pledged to the Knights of the Temple, but there wasn’t time for my induction before I took ship.”

Her eyes narrowed. “So you’re still an aspirant? Not bound by the rules of the order?”

“I’ve chosen to live by those rules until such time as I wear the cross.”

“But you’re not bound?” She gathered her skirts in both hands and pushed to her feet. “Say me no lie, Simon de Rhys. Are you bound or not?”

“No.”

Her head went back. Her nostrils flared. Determination and what looked like desperation darkened her cinnamon-colored eyes.