Alamut Part 14

"No."

Her eyes snapped open.

"No," he said again. "I haven't wanted a woman since before you were born." 109.

Her Up curled.

He was not Ranulf. He did not wither before her contempt.

"Believe me, or not. It changes nothing."

She tossed her head. Half of her was pain. Half of her was cold white anger. "Oh, come. I don't need to be lied to. Whowas she, that night in Aqua Bella? Was she pretty under the veils? Did she give you pleasure?"

He laughed, shocking her into stillness. He was a long time about it. When he could speak, it came in gusts. "You-she- Joanna, ladylove, that was not she but he."

Her heart chilled and shrank. He saw. d.a.m.n him, he saw what her mind had leaped to- He seized her shoulders and shook them, not gently. "Joanna! Is that what you think love is?"

"How can I know what it isn't?"

"The heart knows." He set his finger under her chin, tilting it up. "My dear sweet lady, what your so-faithful friend saw was a bit of youthful mischief. That was no lover of mine or any mortal's. That was the king."

She gasped, and flushed. His hand was light, but she could no more have escaped it than if it had been iron.

He kissed her, light and swift. And, for all his protestations, with effortless skill.

She regarded him in something close to despair. She had no more grace in this than in anything else she ever did. She wanted him, all of him; but there was too much of him. She was like a child. Wanting every sweetmeat in the bowl, gorging on them, sickening with them; howling because they were so much and she so little.

Measure, she thought. Restraint. He was here. G.o.d knew why. G.o.d knew how, but he had chosen her; or been chosen for her. He did not look ancient or august or wise. He looked like a very young man who . . . sweet saints, who thought he loved her.

Her heart was a cold clenched thing, a knot of ice beneath her breastbone. All at once, as she stood staring at him, it melted. Flowed. Opened. Swelled and bloomed and sang. She could not breathe. She could hardly see.

Joy. This was )oy. She laughed; it was like water bubbling, a spring bursting forth in the desert.

He knew. That was the beauty of him. He would always know.

They tumbled down into her blankets. He was laughing with 110 her, quite as wild as she, and quite as deliciously mad. It was the greatest jest in all the world. He, and she, and sin and sanct.i.ty, and sanity, and how little, how very little, it mattered.

II.

Joanna had not fallen into mortal sin. 'She had leaped into itwith both eyes open, welcoming it with all her heart. And she could not make herself repent it. When she tried, a small demon-voice observed. Men never do. Ranulf never has. And: How can it be evil? It's all joy.

The world would destroy her if it knew. She was discreet; or he was. In daylight they were the lady and her knight, the princess and her guardsman. At dusk, in camp or in the cara- vanserai, she ate in her royal solitude and he among the guards.

But in the deep hours between fall dark and dawn, the masks fell. He had no more will than she, to end what they had begun.

Dura could not help but know. She was mute but not deaf, and she was far from blind. But she gave no sign. Her manner toward Joanna changed not at all; no more did her fear of Aidan. Sometimes Joanna wondered what she was thinking.

There was a way to learn, but Joanna would not resort to it. It was too much like betrayal. Of Dura; of Aidan who could know her mind.

No one else suspected. Joanna was sure of that. She knew better than to court discovery with glances and smiles and brus.h.i.+ng", of hand on hand. There was no need. She could think love at him, and know that he knew. Though sometimes she would smile behind her veil, simply because she was happy; because she had been sick unto death, and he had healed her.

"I never believed it could be like this," she said to him the night before they came to Damascus.

It was late and they were short of sleep, but she was wide awake. He had been singing among the men; they had been slow to let him go- He was learning the eastern songs, high and wailing as they were, too subtle for western cars. It was their secret that he had sung for her.

He smiled now and stroked her hair where a curi of it circled 111.

her breast. Sometimes she could forget how imperfect her body was, how slack and heavy it had become; though, to be honest, it was thinning and hardening again with long riding.

He made her feel beautiful. When he looked at her, she was all that she needed to be: herself, and beloved, "Why?" she asked. "Why me?"

"Why anyone in the world? Maybe . . ." He pondered, or pretended to. "Maybe it's the way you sit a horse. Or the way you turn your head when you're startled, light and quick, like a well-bred mare. Or your temper. Yes, I think it must be your temper. It fascinates me. How you can be so gentle, then in a moment, like a storm in the desert, so fiercely angry. We can understand that, my temper and I. It makes us want to tame it.

Or," he added, "to match it.""I shouldn't think you'd find that hard."

He laughed in his throat- "See how the clouds gather!"

She thrust herself up, out of his embrace. "Is that all I am to you? A pet? A filly to be ridden until she submits?"

"You know you're not." He was perfectly calm, but his amus.e.m.e.nt had died.

A demon had found its way to her tongue. "I can't ever be your equal, can I? I'm only human. I'm a diversion, a trick to while away the time until the a.s.sa.s.sin comes. It's convenient, isn't it? You can pleasure me while you guard me."

"Convenient," he said, "yes." He sat up, shaking back his hair. He moved like a cat, always; a little more now, the only visible sign that she had p.r.i.c.ked him. Like a cat, when he was up, he tended his vanity: combed his hair with his fingers, smoothed his beard.

Laughter welled up, putting the demon to flight. She fell on him, bore him back and down, held him prisoner beneath her.

His eyes strayed from her face to the heavy sway other b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"d.a.m.n you," she said. "I can never stay angry with you. Is it a spell?"

"If it is, it's none of mine."

She swooped down for a kiss. He was more than willing. She let it go on for a delightful while. He arched his back, warming below as above. But she paused. "Tell me the truth. What am I to you? Am I only human?"

It was hard for a man to talk sense when he held a woman so, but he was somewhat more than a man. He shook his head.

"You are Joanna. No mortal woman has ever been what you are to me."

112 JwUth Tmr She was satisfied with that. When he had given her all that he knew how to give, she fell asleep, her long legs tangled with his own.

He should rise soon and find his own place, before dawn melted the image that seemed to sleep there. But he could not, yet, gather the will to move- He had told her the truth. It was not supposed to be possi- ble, what they had. Not with humankind. She had a gift; she could open herself as few mortals could, and give him fully of herself, without stinting. And the more she gave, the more there was to give. Her joy sang in him like the note of a harp.

And yet she could doubt. She could ask what she had asked.

She never forgot, no more than he, that they were not of the same kind.

What his mother had had with his father ... it was differ- ent. They had not cared that he was mortal and she was not.Even at the end, he had kept his pride, his certainty that they were not lady and servant but mate and mate.

As for Aidan and Joanna-were they? He thought of her as a child, more often than not. And she knew it. She had seen how he indulged her temper.

Well then. She was a woman.

He grimaced. He knew perfectly well what his mother would have said to that. She had not been sane, but she had been strong, and firm in what she taught.

Human, then. Weaker than he. Under his guardians.h.i.+p, and sorely in need of it. But beloved-before G.o.d, she was that. It was not mere bodily l.u.s.t which brought him to her in the night, and kept him there perilously close to the edge of pru- dence. He had tested himself. He had cast his eye on women at the well in a village through which they had pa.s.sed, a day or two ago. Robes and veils were no obstacle to his eyes. He had tried to make himself desire the bodies beneath; and very fair one or two of them had been. He could as easily have raised his staff for one of the marcs. They were not his kind. They were not, above all, Joanna.

She stirred in his arms and murmured. Her dream brushed past him. Aimery was in it, warm against her breast. And Ranulf. Ranulf saying, with as much courage as if he faced an army of infidels, "I love you- G.o.d be my witness, I do."

With utmost care Aidan slid away from her. She groped, bereft, but did not wake. He dressed swiftly but without haste. 113.

He paused, half bending over her, as if to kiss her, but straight- ened abruptly and shook his head. That was a human revenge, that claiming.

His fetch lay on the mat outside her door, dimming already though it was not yet c.o.c.kcrow. It flayed and melted as he sat where it had been. He clasped his knees and rocked, and frowned into the dark. He needed to relieve himself, but some- thing kept him there, some sense that touched the edge of his wards.

He greeted Morgiana with hardly more than a widening of the eyes. He was not aware until he had done it, that he had set his back firmly against the door. It was not guilt that moved in him. No, not guilt. Even though, looking at her, he knew that if he let it, his body would kindle for her. "Good morning," he said. "Is it light enough yet for your prayer?"

She shook her head. She was in white as always; he could see that it was a man's garb. Even, now, to the turban. Her hair hung below it in three long braids. It was hardly a disguise. She looked no less female, and no less feral. He could not help noticing that she wore a belt, and a dagger in a damascened sheath."Will you sit?" he asked her, being gracious- "I regret that I have neither food nor drink to offer you."

Her eyes were briefly wild, but she sat as he bade her, as far out of his reach as the width of the pa.s.sage would allow.

"My name is Aidan," he said.

"Aidan." It rolled strangely off her tongue. "So easily you give it me?"

"You gave me yours."

Her shoulder lifted, an odd half-shrug. "It pleased my fancy."

"I come from Rhiyana, far in the west, between Francia and the sea. You?"

Her eyes had lowered under the long lids, but he felt them on him. "Desert," she said, "and empty places. It was Persepo- lis, once. Sikandar burned it."

"Sikandar? Alexander?"

"Sikandar."

His mouth had fallen open, he realized dimly. He willed it shut. "You remember Alexander?"

"I think . . ." She frowned at her knotted fingers: in that, so like, so d.a.m.nably tike Joanna. "I think . . . not. I am not 114 so old. No. The land remembers. And the mins, like ancient bones thrusting out of the earth."

"Persepolis," he said. "Persia." Was that the shape of her face, beneath the strangeness that was witchkind? Sharp, yes, narrow-chinned, eyes too large for human comfort under the slant of brows; but smoother than his own, a gentler oval, skin closer to ivory than to alabaster. Though perhaps a human eye would barely see it.

She raised her eyes to stare at him as frankly as he stared at her. Amus.e.m.e.nt sparked them; unwilling, he might have thought. "You could almost be an Arab," she said.

"So I'm told." He was rubbing his eagle's beak of a nose; he lowered his hand. She bit down on a smile. She was no dainty snubnosed la.s.s herself; that was a fine high arch, and all Persia in it. "Why are you dressed like a Turk?" he asked her.

"I am not-" She fixed him with a hard bright stare. "How should I dress?"

"Any way you like."

That pleased her. "I like you in the djellaba. It's more fitting.Even if you are a Frank."

"Rhiyanan," he said.

"Frank." It was beyond argument. "Al-Khalid," she said, "outlander, what do you do in our country? Are you a spy?"

"What would you do if I were?"

"Kill you." There was no hesitation in that at all. He s.h.i.+v- ered lightly. Old and cold and wild: oh, yes. She was perilous.

He leaned back against the door and folded his arms and smiled his whitest smile. "I'm not a spy. I'm guarding a cara- van. May I ask what you were doing in Jerusafem?"

"Admiring your fine white body."

Bolder words he had never heard, and she seemed to know it. The faintest of flushes stained her cheek. It was, in spite of everything, enchanting.

His blush was fiercer than hers. It took all the strength he had not to leap at her; to say coolly, "I trust you found it to your liking."

Her teeth flashed, white and sharp as his own. "It serves its purpose. How is it that you grow your beard? Franks of your . . . prctrincss . . . most often do not."

His hand went to it. "You don't like it?"

"AUah!" She was laughing. "Franks! We of the civilized world maintain chat a man's beauty is only ftufillcd when he grants it its fiuiest expression." 115.

He had not known that. He rubbed his chin. Somehow, at the moment, it did not feel quite so roughly unkempt.

"You are vain," said the Saracen, more amused than not, "for a hired soldier."

He stiffened. "Madam, in my own country I am the son of a king."

"I don't doubt it." Nor did she sound as if she cared. "Here, you arc a foreigner who tries unskillfully to ape Muslim man- ners. Will you be advised, al-Khalid? Tell the truth where you can. Where you cannot, do as you see Muslims do. And never," she said, "never let them see what lies between your navel and your knees."

He stared, uncomprehending.

She hissed with impatience. She sounded like an angry cat.

"Modesty," she snapped. And when he did not respond quickly enough: "You arc not circ.u.mcised!"That, he could understand. His cheeks were flaming. She had seen altogether too much. Unless she was guessing.

She must be. She would know the tales. Saracens called Franks the Uncirc.u.mcised.

Her cat-eyes were bright with malice. "And, if I may advise you further, you might do well to consider your accent. You look like a prince of the desert. You speak Arabic like a camel driver from Alcppo."

He s.h.i.+fted it to that of a she-demon from PcrsepoHs. "Would this better please my lady?"