Alamut Part 3

"The cloister," Aidan admitted after a pause. "The learning was interesting, if sometimes more edifying than I liked. But the walls I was locked in ... I thought I would go mad."

Even yet the memory could dampen his brow. He tried to laugh it away. "You see. I'm no legend^ I'm merely very odd."

"Wonderful," said Thibaut. He would never dare to touch, but he could hug his knees and stare with all his heart. "You came here alone," he said. "Did you lose your servants?"

"I had none."

Thibaut was incredulous.

Aidan looked down, shrugging. "Well. I had a few when I began. Some I sent back. Some I set free. I wanted to see this country bare, with no crowds tugging at me."

"But now you're here," said Thibaut, "and it's not fitting.

You are a prince. You should have an entourage."

The prince's eyes glittered. "I should? And who are you to say so?""Your station says it," Thibaut said with barely a tremor, "and the dignity you won't admit. You can't demean yourself like a hedge-knight from a Prankish byre. You have a name to uphold."

For a moment Thibaut knew he would be smitten where he 26 sat- But Aidan's glare turned to laughter. "G.o.d's bonest What a priest you would make."

I can't," said Thibaut. "I'm heir to Aqua Bella."

There was no regret in that, but no horror at the prospect of priesthood, either. Thibaut had thought once that he might tike to be a Templar, and ride about with a red cross on his breast, and be looked on with holy awe. But he was three parts a Frank and one a Saracen, and that one was enough. He was no longer bitter about it. He did not fancy sleeping in a stone barn with a hundred other men, and never bathing, and grow- ing his beard to his knees. When he had a beard to grow, which did not look to be soon.

prie tike Aidan, like Gereint, seemed to know by nature what a bath was for. And he did not seem to care that Thibaut's mother was half a Saracen. His own was all an ifritah; or whatever they called her in her own country.

"I want to be your squire," said Thibaut.

Aidan's brows went up.

"I'm old enough," Thibaut said. "I'm trained. I was Ger- eint's, before-" He swallowed, steadied. "I have to be some- one's. It's expected. I need it. And since you are a prince, and alone, and the best knight in the world-"

"No," said Aidan.

Thibaut had not heard it. Would not hear it. "You need me.

Your rank demands me. I need you. How will I ever make a knight, with my face and my puniness, unless you teach me?"

"You did well enough before I came."

"That was before," said Thibaut. "Now 111 never be satisfied with less."

"Has it ever occurred to you that that is impudence?"

-Thibaut blushed, but faintly. "It's true." After a moment he added, "My lord."

Aidan smiled. For him, that was restraint. He laid his hands on Thibaut's shoulders and looked him in the eyes. Thibaut stared, fascinated. Aidan shook him with a whisper of his truestrength; even that was enough to rattle Thibaut's bones. "lis- ten to me, Thibaut. Listen well. I am honored that you think me worthy of your service. I would be honored to accept it.

But I cannot."

"Why?"

Aidan's breath hissed. He seemed as much amused as angry.

But through it he was somber, and that sombemess quelled Thibaut utterly. "Because, Thibaut. Yesterday I swore an oath, 27.

and that oath binds me. I cannot-dare not-allow another to share it." He paused, as if he waited for Thibaut to ask, but Thibaut could not. "I swore to exact payment for Gcreint's death. I swore to exact it from the Lord of the a.s.sa.s.sins him- self, in his own person, and to stop at nothing until I should have done it."

His hands tightened on Thibaut's shoulders. Thibaut gasped, but he was strong. He did not cry out. "Now do you understand?" Aidan demanded of him. "Now do you compre- hend why I must be alone?"

"No," said Thibaut.

Aidan let him go so suddenly that he fell against the parapet.

He righted himself, shaking, but trying to hide it. His voice came out as a squeak, until it steadied somewhere between alto and high tenor. "He was never of my blood, but he was my kin. He was all the father I ever knew. It is my right to share in taking his blood-price."

Aidan looked at him. Thibaut knew what he saw.

The prince's face twisted. "Youll make a man," he said, as if to himself. But then: "No, Thibaut. I have defenses against a.s.sa.s.sins. You have none. And they will strike you. Believe me, Thibaut. They will."

"That's so whether I stay with you or no. Mother won't tell me, but I know. I'm marked. Theyll come against me next. At least, with you, I'll have a little hope. Of defending myself. Of taking revenge for Gereint."

"You should have been a scholar," said Aidan. "You argue like one." He rose abruptly. "Your mother will have my hide."

And Thibaut's. But Thibaut was too rapt in bliss to care. He had what he had wanted since he was old enough to under- stand Gereint's stories.

He did not want to be alone any longer. He smiled at the prince's black scowl, and knelt there in the sun on the broken tower. He laid his hands on Aidan's knees; he said the words chat made him the liege man of the Prince ofCaer Gwent. The Prince ofCaer Gwent accepted them. He did it roughly, with- out pleasure, but he did it. "And on your head be it," he said.It was true, Thibaut saw to his own satisfaction. Aidan looked different when he was by himself, or with people who knew what he was. In hall, among strangers, he seemed re- markable still, but humanly remarkable: a tall young man with ^ a strikingly handsome face. Even his pallor was dimmed, 28 Judith Tear though that would never be anything but startling in a country where every man was burned either black or scarlet by the sun.

"He's as white as a maid," someone said in Thibaur's hear- ing.

"G.o.d knows, he doesn't fight like one," said someone else.

"Why, have you seen him?"

"Seen him? He's knocked me clean over the crupper." The man sounded anything but ashamed to confess it. "Here, I forget-youVe been mewed up in court. We had a bit of tour- ney in Acre, a sennight back. Nothing of consequence, merely a handful of challengers and a few wagers made. There'd been the usual crop of tyros on the boat from Saint Mark, c.o.c.ky as they always are, and stinking to high heaven. But that one was as fresh as a girl, and someone remarked on it as you did, and someone else took it up, and one way and another we were all hot to muss his pretty curls for him.

"We had pity on his innocence. We matched the weakest of us with him. You can imagine what happened."

The other apparently could not. His eyes were on the slen- der figure in black, bending over a lady's hand, dwarfed beside her great blond-bearded consort.

"It was," said the knight from Acre, "surprising, if not in- contestable. Yet. It could have been blind luck. He was holding back, we found out soon enough. And he kept on doing it. I dared to think I had him, till I found myself flat on my back, staring at the sky.

"Then he lost his temper. I don't know precisely what set him off: I was still taking inventory of my bones. I think some- one accused him of mocking us, and challenged him to show us what he could do.

"Now, mind, we were limping and groaning and swearing from the heat, but he was as fresh and cool as a flower in a lady's garden. He'd changed horses twice, taking offers of mounts more used to the climate than the one he'd brought from the west. They were good horses, not nags or rogues: we were fools, but we were honest fools. I remember, he had Riquier's big grey, and Riquier rides him on a bit-shank a span long, but our lad had the reins on the beast's neck and was guiding him with his s.h.i.+ns. He rode down the lists with his lance in rest, and though he had his helm on we knew he was glaring at us. Then he lowered his lance at the one who'darmed to keep us company, but who'd never meant to fight, and no one was minded to challenge him." 29.

"Balian, of course," said the other.

"Balian," the knight agreed. "Of course. WcVe all done our share of listening to troubadours. So, obviously, had the boy from the west. Of course we tried to talk the young fool out of it. Balian is a man in his full strength, Balian is seasoned, Balian is the unconquerod champion ofOutrcmcr.

" Therefore,' said the westerner, 'I will fight with him.'

"He meant it. Lances first, then if neither would yield, swords, until one either yielded or was hurt too badly to go on.

Balian was hardly willing. He's a gentle enough soul, when he's not breaking lances. But a challenge is a challenge, and Balian understands a young man's hunger for honor. He could give that even with defeat.

"You know how it goes in any toumey. The knights take their places at the ends of the lists. The destriers champ and snort and shake the ground with their pawing. The world holds its breath. Then the lord raises his hand. The lances come down. The s.h.i.+elds come up. The horses lumber into morion. It's dream-slow; then it's blurringly fast.

"Even before the lances met, we knew what we were seeing.

G.o.d knows, there are no knights in the world to compare with ours in Outremcr; and often weVe seen it proven, with every s.h.i.+p that comes out of the west, and every sunstruck c.o.c.kerel who fancies himself a champion.

"This one was c.o.c.kerel enough^ but he could ride a joust.

He broke his lance on Balian's s.h.i.+eld, and Balian broke his on the westerner's, and neither even swayed in the saddle. They'd been testing, we could see. Neither said a word that we could hear, but they stopped in the same instant, dismounted, and set to with swords.

"Now, Balian can ride, but it's with the sword that he excels, and it's with the sword that he's held his t.i.tle so long. His arm is made of iron and his wind is unbreakable, and he has an eye like a Cairene cutpursc. There arc men who'd swear that he sees a stroke coming before his opponent has even thought of it.

"And here he'd met his match. Soon enough they had their helms off, and they were grinning like boys on a lark, but going at it with all they had. Or Balian was. The other was still-srill!

-holding back. Till Balian saw, and his grin went wild, and he struck in grim earnest. Struck, if the other slipped the merest degree, to kill.

"And the other saw, and his smile never wavered, but I saw the glitter in his eye. He turned that stroke, and he sent the30 sword spinning out of Balian's hands, and he laid his point against Balian's throat, gentle as a mother's kiss. 'You'll make a swordsman,' he said."

There was a long pause, with breaths drawn sharply in it.

Then: "By the Cross! Did Balian kill him for it?"

"Balian? Balian cursed him in three languages, and then asked him if he'd mind taking on a pupil."

Thibaut grinned to himself. The tale had won an audience, and they were all trying not to goggle. No one was suggesting, Thibaut noticed, that the young c.o.c.kerel was not as young as he seemed. Rhiyana was small and very far away, and played little part in western wars and none in those of the east. No one here knew what its king was. As for his brother . . .

People would believe what they wanted to believe. That had always been Gereint's wisdom and his safety. His lineage was not a thing to speak of where a stranger could hear it. He had been a little afraid, sometimes, when he talked of his uncle's coming, though he laughed at himself. "He's older, than I, and wiser, and he's long learned to seem, if not ordinary, at least human. And yet . . . he is what he is. He never lies about it.

If someone asks him direct ..."

So far, no one had. Thibaut intended to keep it so. Though it meant coming within reach of his mother's eye, he stationed himself in Aidan's shadow, armed with a bland stare and an air of squirely watchfulncss.

They laid Gereint in his tomb under the chapel of Aqua Bella, and although he might have had a bishop to sing him to his rest, his lady would have none but her own humble chap- lain. Old and all but blind, he still had a sweet voice, and his wits did not wander overmuch, although he forgot once and called Gereint by the name of Margaret's father.

It was as Gereint would have wished it.

"He was blessed in the end," said Margaret when it was over.

"He died without pain, in the prime of his life. He had noth- ing to regret."

Hall and solar were foil of people who would need, soon, to think that their presence comforted her. But for this little while, in the cool dimness of the crypt, they let her be. Thi- baut did not want to be there, but he could not make himself go elsewhere. Under dust and incense and old stone, he thought he smelled death. Foolish. His grandfather's tomb held naught by now but old bones, dry and clean under the 31.

effigy. Gereint was sealed tight in the niche that would have been Margaret's, embalmed in spices and wrapped in lead and laid under a slab that had needed four strong mcn-at-arms tos.h.i.+ft it. Later his effigy would lie there, all in armor, with the cross of Crusade on its breast.

Aidan knelt by the niche. If he prayed, it was a warrior's prayer, a fierce intensity. A saint might look like that as he labored to raise the dead.

Thibaut s.h.i.+vered. That, he already knew, was beyond Aidan's power.

Margaret moved slowly through the crypt. Her shadow was huge in the light of the lamp over her father's tomb. She paused by Gereint's, and laid her hand on its lid. A tremor rocked her. Thibaut looked at her in something very like hor- ror. Margaret was the strongest person in the world. Margaret never lost her temper, or her composure, or her wits. Margaret never wept.

It was as if the castle itself had begun to crumble and fall.

Thibaut was frozen in shock, helpless. Aidan moved as if he had never been rapt in prayer, rising, touching her. And she let him. She came to him as to a haven. He sank down, cradling her as if she had been a child, rocking her, saying nothing. His face was deathly still. His cheeks were wet.

Thibaut did not know what he did until he had done it. He crept close to them, and huddled'fcy them. There was room for him, and warmth and strength to spare. They held at bay the cold of death. They began, slowly, to heal him.

4.

For Aidan there would be no healing while Gereint's a.s.sa.s.sin lived unpunished. He worked, ate, spoke, even laughed, but die memory never left him, nor the grief. Even an hour, his heart mourned. Even an hour sooner . . .

But beneath that, infinitely darker, infinitely more terrible: / never knew. I in aUMy power, in my pride, in my certainty that the world was mine to do with as I chose-I was as blind as any mortal WWW.

Gereint had died, and Aidan had had not the slightest suspi-

32.

cion. He had been all joy, looking to the road's end, knowing how Gcreint would be when Aidan came: trying to be a man, to remember his dignity, but d.a.m.ning it all and whooping like a boy. He was dead before he knew it, gone, taken away where mortal men went; where Aidan could never go.

The hall of Aqua Bella saw a prince at the lady's table, eating little, but calm, composed. Behind the mask, he wept and raged.The a.s.sa.s.sin had left no trace, no memory of presence. The cake was gone, cast away in fear. Gereint was in his tomb.

But Aidan knew where to hunt. Masyaf had sent the mur- derer out; to Masyaf, inevitably, the murderer must return.

Aidan would be waiting for him.

Aidan stopped pretending to eat. His kind needed little sus- tenance, and even that, now, was more than he could stomach.

The guests were quiet as befit a funeral, but they seemed hun- gry enough, and thirsty for the wine that came out of Bethle- hem. At the high table, Margaret ate and drank sparingly but calmly. Thibaut, who was young enough to find healing in tears and a strong embrace, was eating as if he had had nothing for days. Maybe he had not. He did not often glance at Aidan, bur his awareness was palpable, like a hand on Aldan's shoul- der.

Gereint had been like that. It was not adoration; nothing so foolish. It was kins.h.i.+p, deeper even than blood.

It was a gift. Aidan did not want it; it did not fill the place that was empty. Ifet he could no more refuse it than he had refused Gereint.