“I am sorry.” She moaned, clutching her belly. “The boat isn’t moving. The seasickness is supposed to stop. Please, don’t waste your time with me. I will be well in but a moment. Or maybe two.”
He smiled at her as he laid his hand upon her forehead. “Your belly will continue to cramp until I stop it, which I will. Just hold still whilst I mix you one of my magic potions.”
She nodded, clearly disbelieving him, as she said, “Jerval, what of the wounded? What has happened?”
“The Saracens fled,” Jerval said, “and Acre is once again safe. King Hugh wasn’t harmed. We lost only a few men. Now, shut your mouth and let Sir Elvan take care of you.”
“How did you know I would still be sick? How dare you worry about me and not about yourself?”
Sir Elvan laughed as he mixed a white powder in a wooden mug of wine.
“Drink this,” he said as he held the mug to her lips. “When you awaken, the cramps will be gone and you can hear all about what happened. You don’t believe me, but you will see.”
“Jerval, I don’t know about this. You swear you are not harmed?”
“I am quite fit. Now, be quiet and close your eyes.”
She said, her voice slurred, “Now I shall have to mend that wretched surcoat. It is badly ripped.”
And he laughed.
CHAPTER 25
Eustace followed a silent, olive-skinned slave into the cool interior of Ali ad-Din’s private chamber. He drew up at the sight of the merchant—black-eyed, heavily bearded, his huge belly held in place by a wide, gold-threaded sash, and felt a tug of envy. His long robe was of cool light yellow silk, richly embroidered and studded with gems. He wore stiff brocade slippers with the same oddly pointed toes the other local men of wealth wore. Only these were crusted with gems. Ali ad-Din was rich, a member of the High Court of Acre, and as Eustace’s eyes swept across the opulent chamber and the dark-skinned slaves, he wished he owned but a portion of his wealth.
Ali ad-Din sighed to himself, softly cursing the early arrival of Sir Eustace de Leybrun. He had hoped to see Princess Eleanor’s milk-white skin stretched over her belly as she stepped into his bathing pool, but she had not removed the silk robe his women had provided her. Though the golden-haired girl with her was beautiful, her breasts full and white, she was a bit too thin for his taste. He had given only a cursory glance at the plump, dark-haired girl, pretty enough, but of little interest compared to the full-bellied princess.
Although Ali ad-Din was nominally Christian, he proffered Eustace the Moslem greeting, touching his forehead with his beringed fingers. “Ah, Sir Eustace,” he said, not the smallest shadow in his voice to show that his guest wasn’t welcome. He walked away from the veil-covered wall where he had been standing when Eustace entered the room. “You have come to remove your beautiful English princess and her ladies from my humble house?”
Eustace nodded, and at Ali ad-Din’s graceful wave of his hand, sank down on a pile of soft pillows that surrounded a low sandalwood table inlaid with ivory.
A slave girl poured him a goblet of sweet red Cypriot wine and held a huge, fruit-filled bowl toward him. He selected several sticky soft dates, a delicacy that seemed to be everyday fare in Palestine.
“I hope your noble Prince Edward and his mighty lords are in good health?”
Eustace had grown used to the roundabout questioning, a disconcerting trait of all the heathen in the Holy Land, be they Christian or Moselm. “Aye,” he said only, his teeth tingling at the flavor of the tartly sweet dates.
Ali thought Sir Eustace as boorish an oaf as most of the arrogant nobles who had traveled with the English prince, but the smile never left his mouth. He continued in his soft voice. “I fear that you must rest awhile in my company, Sir Eustace, for the beautiful ladies have not yet finished their bath.”
“I will wait,” Eustace said, chewing on another date. “The prince has commanded that the ladies be escorted at all times, as you know.” He added the words Edward had bade him speak. “The prince does, of course, treasure your kindness in offering your house for the ladies’ comfort.”
“It is an honor,” Ali said, his black eyes hooded. He prided himself on his judgment of a man’s character, and Sir Eustace’s envious glances had not been lost on him. He suspected that Sir Eustace was not a religious fool like the English prince, nor, he thought, did he seem capable of the almost blind loyalty of Lord Payn de Chaworth and Sir Jerval de Vernon, the two English nobles whose wives were at this very moment enjoying his bathing room with the child-swelled Princess Eleanor. The man would make himself sick if he continued to eat the sweet dates. Ali silently clicked his fingers together toward the boy slave. The bowl of fruit was removed and Eustace’s goblet was filled with more wine.
“It is a pity that the saintly King Louis did not succeed,” Ali said. “But he was a sick old man, and Tunis such an infested rat hole. The Saracens believed, of course, that Acre would be an easy plum to pick now that the new French king, Philip, and King Charles of Sicily have made peace with the Sultan Baibars. All of Acre, my lord, is grateful to you English nobles for your bravery.”
Eustace’s belly felt warmed by the sweet wine. They had indeed saved a beautiful city, one of the few Christian fortresses left in Palestine. The Venetians and Genoese had garnered great wealth here, and the Sultan Baibars’s lust for the city was understandable. But Christ, to pit one thousand men against Baibars’s vast armies—even Edward had not understood why the Saracens had fled the besieged city, for the sultan commanded ten times their numbers. It was still a mystery.
“You seem to have weathered the siege well.”
Ali shrugged. “A merchant, even such a humble one as myself, must arrange his affairs so that he will survive, no matter the outcome.” He added on a smile, “Since I am neither Genoese nor Venetian, I have not had to concern myself with their bickering, and have been able to trade with both of them.”
“You have many slaves,” Eustace said, as a lithe young girl clothed only in a filmy silk robe stepped toward them.
Ali’s mouth split into a wide smile over his white teeth. “And many beautiful women, my friend,” he said. “Several of my slave girls are with your English ladies now, attending them at their bath.”
“The prince,” Eustace said, “is grateful for your offer of a banquet tonight. He has grown tired of the rations.”
“It is not unexpected. My humble house is his to command. I understand that he thinks to leave Acre soon.”
Eustace looked up quickly, surprised that the merchant knew of the prince’s plans. He had cursed Edward under his breath when he had learned they were to leave even the nominal comforts of Acre to scout the blistering inland.
“I am not certain,” Eustace said.
“No matter,” Ali said agreeably, waving his beringed hand toward the slave girl. She silently stood next to Eustace, her olive features expressionless. When Eustace raised his face, his eyes fell upon the supple flesh of her bare belly. “Her name is Loka,” Ali said smoothly. “She is only thirteen years old, but skilled in the art of men’s pleasure. Perhaps tonight, after the banquet, you would wish to enjoy her gifts.”
“Aye, perhaps,” Eustace said. What he wanted to do was to see Chandra, naked, in her bath, and he wondered what she was doing.
Just behind the wall, in the bathing room, Beri, their translator, said of one of the slaves, “She has never before seen anyone like you, madam. She says that you are golden everywhere, even between your thighs.”
Joanna de Chaworth held her sides with laughter, but Chandra blinked and turned red, looking down at the slave girl who was on her knees before her, a soapy sponge in her hand.
“I wish that you would be quiet,” Chandra said, frowning toward Joanna and wishing the girl would stand up again. She still hadn’t shaken the sense of embarrassment she felt at being naked around the women, and the slave girls seemed to delight in looking at her and touching her. “I think I am clean now, Beri. I would
like to swim in the pool.”
Beri said a few swift phrases to the girl. She rinsed the sponge free of soap and poured warm, perfumed water from a pottery jug gently over Chandra’s head. Chandra stretched and pushed her heavy wet hair out of her face.
“There can be nothing more wonderful than this. If only we had this in England. You really must try it, Joanna.” She then smiled at Beri and slipped beneath the surface of the cool water of the pool, enjoying the absolute stillness. When she couldn’t hold her breath any longer, she flipped onto her back and floated, her hair fanning out about her head. She cocked an eye open and raised her head from the water at Joanna’s shriek of laughter as the soft sponge glided over her body.
Chandra wondered, looking at Joanna, how she remained so plump. She would swear that Joanna ate less than she did, and yet Chandra was still thin—at least that was what Jerval kept telling her just before he stuck food in her mouth. At least she was fit again. She had seen the Templar physician, Sir Elvan, but once since they had settled in their sprawling tent encampment just beyond St. Anthony’s Gate, outside the walls of Acre. He had treated her kindly, gently kneading her belly and nodding his approval to Jerval. “As I told you, when the stomach cramps so much it becomes a reflex, and medicine is necessary to stop the cramping. Now you are well, and I want you to stay that way.”
Chandra stood up in the water. It came to her waist. Joanna said, “If only Payn would take a few moments from his infernal plotting and join me in this pool, I vow he would soon have the son he so desperately wants.”
“I think you should have a daughter, Joanna. She would laugh and make everyone happy.”
“A son first, then I may bring my glorious daughter to this world. Aye, it is only fair—Payn has worked so very hard, he deserves a son first. Do you not think Sir Jerval would enjoy himself with you in this pool, floating and whatever else in the water?”
“Aye, he would.” Chandra remembered so clearly that day she’d been bathing in their chamber in Sicily. She had felt so languid, lazily dreaming, enjoying the touch of the soapy cloth and the warm water. And Jerval had watched her and wanted her, had held her so tightly that she felt the pounding of his heart against her breast. Ah, that afternoon, he had told her he loved her, and it had been the first time in so very long. And she’d said nothing because she was afraid. She was a fool.
As one of the slave girls toweled her dry, Chandra raised her eyes to see Beri looking at her, a thoughtful expression on her lovely face. Chandra smiled, cocking her head in question. Beri motioned Chandra to lie on her stomach atop a cushioned table. “The girls will rub a soothing oil into your skin. It will protect you from the fierceness of the sun.”
Chandra felt a warm liquid run down to the small of her back before gentle hands rubbed over her, smoothing the oil into her skin. She felt light-headed, and so relaxed that she could not keep her eyes open.
“You are very beautiful,” Beri said, “and golden everywhere.” A slight smile indented the corners of her mouth. “I had thought you would be ugly, perhaps lumpy and fat.”
“Why did you believe I would be ugly, Beri?”
Beri paused a moment, then smiled sadly. “You are lucky in many ways, my lady. You are wellborn, a great lord’s wife, and have the choice to do whatever you wish. I am a slave, and but do my master’s bidding. My mother was also a slave. An Armenian merchant sold me to Ali ad-Din when I was thirteen years old.”
Beri turned away and calmly directed a slave girl to fetch another jar of perfumed oil.
“My master,” Beri continued after a moment, “has taken a great liking to your husband, Sir Jerval. He took my master’s side before the High Court against a Genoese merchant who wanted to strip him of his trade route to the Mongols. The Genoese are dirty and so greedy that they would give Acre itself to the Sultan Baibars if they could fatten their purses by it.”
“Aye,” Chandra said. “My husband told me of it, though he said that Ali ad-Din would have won his case anyway.”
“Your husband is a very handsome man,” Beri said matter-of-factly. “There is another, an English noble whose name I cannot pronounce. He has such intense eyes, dark as a velvet midnight, and they burn deep when he looks at me.”
Chandra searched her mind. “Do you mean Sir Eustace de Leybrun?”
“Never that one. He is outside with my master, waiting for you to finish with your bath. I dislike him. He frightened me. It is how he looks at a woman. It isn’t healthy.”
Intense eyes, Chandra thought, reviewing the nobles in Prince Edward’s retinue. She said quietly, not looking up, “You mean Lord Graelam de Moreton.”
Beri nodded. “Am I right about him? Is he intense? Do his passions burn strong? Do you know him well?”
“I know him. I suppose you could say that his passions burn strong, perhaps even out of control. He is ruthless, Beri, take care.”
“Men should be ruthless,” Beri said with great seriousness. “It makes them more desirable.”
Now that was something to think about.
“Come, Chandra,” Joanna called, lowering her towel. “It is my turn to be oiled down.”
Chandra obligingly rolled off the table and rose. She pulled the towel from about her hair and shook it out free. “It will take an hour to dry,” she said. She turned to see Beri looking after her, her expression puzzled.
The banquet was held in the tent-covered inner courtyard of Ali ad-Din’s palace. The air was redolent with fragrant incense, and the oil lamps burned softly, casting blurred shadows on the rich silk and brocade furnishings. Chandra was gowned in a pale blue silk robe, and her hair hung over her shoulders, held back from her forehead with a band of twisted gold. There was no breeze blowing off the Mediterranean this night, and Chandra felt her gown sticking to her back. The aging archbishop of Liege, Tedaldo Visconti, looked at her approvingly, and she found herself wondering if it was her soul or her person that pleased him.
Chandra greeted Sir Elvan warmly. “I have never seen a sword scabbard studded with precious stones,” she told him.
“A physician receives many gifts in payment for his services,” he said.
“Don’t believe him, Chandra,” Jerval said. “He is more than a physician. He is a Templar, and he shows equal skill in commerce.”
“I have heard it said that you do not always agree with another military order, the Hospitalers.”
“And you find that strange, Lady Chandra? It is true, and the reasons for our disagreements precede my birth. If we take one side of an issue, you can be certain that the Hospitalers will take the other.”
“As Christians,” Chandra said, “I believe we should all fight on the same side.”
Sir Elvan merely smiled. “Nothing, my lady, is ever so simple, I fear.”
“No,” she said after a moment, nodding, “I think you are right.”
Chandra took her place beside her husband on the soft, down-filled pillows. Small sandalwood dining tables were set close together across the courtyard, a red-robed slave standing beside each of them. Along a long table at the far end of the courtyard, Prince Edward and Princess Eleanor sat with Ali ad-Din and King Hugh of Cyprus and Jerusalem. Although Edward wore a pleasant smile, he had a distracted air about him that seemed to Chandra to be shared by all of his nobles present tonight.
She heard Roger de Clifford say to Jerval, “It seems that King Hugh has arranged a farewell banquet for himself tonight, Jerval. He is returning to Cyprus.”
“He should remain. He should show support for Prince Edward,” Jerval said.
“He cannot afford to remain here much longer, else he might lose Cyprus to his greedy barons.”
Chandra took a bite of the roasted lamb, then turned toward Jerval when he said, “I suppose you’re right, Roger. Now that his barons have sent word that they will only serve in the defense of Cyprus, there is little reason for him to stay. Edward, at least, took it well. Though King Hugh had promised us men to defeat the Saracens, in truth,
their numbers would not have added much.”
Chandra said, “I can scarce believe that a king has so little control over his kingdom. Methinks King Hugh should muzzle his barons.”
Roger de Clifford blinked in surprise. “I did not think you ladies had any interest in or knowledge of the matter.”
Chandra cocked an eyebrow. “Why would you think that, Sir Roger?”
Jerval said, after a moment, “Where did you hear of our problems with the Cypriot barons, Chandra?”
“From Ali ad-Din. I asked him why King Hugh of Cyprus was here with so few men.”
“He fears treachery, that’s why,” Eustace said. “What chance have a thousand men against the damned Sultan Baibars and his hordes of Saracen soldiers?”
“Do not forget,” Graelam de Moreton called out, “that the Venetians—our Christian brothers—are busily supplying Baibars with all the timber and metal he needs for his armaments. And the equally Christian Genoese supply them the slaves to build their weapons.”
“Do you know that when Edward reproved the merchants,” Payn de Chaworth said, his brow knit in an angry frown, “they simply showed him their licenses from the High Court at Acre? By God, I would drive them all into the sea.”
Joanna de Chaworth, smiling at her husband with a lustful eye, interrupted the grim conversation. “I cannot get used to these white grains called sugar.” She held up a sweetmeat made of dates and lemons, sticky with the sweet substance, for her husband’s inspection. “I still cannot believe, my lord, that it will replace honey, as you keep telling me.”
Payn smiled, leaning toward his wife. “It is one of Palestine’s main trade goods to the West, Joanna.”