Warrior's Song (Medieval Song 1)

“But this was different. It was me you wished to escape, wasn’t it? That was why you agreed to come with Edward. You no longer wanted me.”

“A part of that is true. I believed you would never come to me. That you would never realize that together we could be more than we are separately. I still wonder, despite all we have been through together.”

She was silent.

CHAPTER 27

They rode out of the city three days later, the wounded English either tied to their horses or drawn by them on litters at the center of the phalanx of troops. Chandra rode next to Jerval, cursing his pride. He should not have refused a litter. She knew that he felt pain, but he was in his armor again, and in his saddle. Edward had done what he could for the Christians of Nazareth, but beyond providing all the food he could spare and leaving two of his physicians behind with a hundred soldiers, there was little he could do.

Chandra looked up to see Eleanor ease her palfrey next to the prince’s destrier. She had given up her litter to a wounded soldier. She extended her hand and laid it gently upon her husband’s mailed arm. It was an offer of comfort, a sign of love and trust. Chandra saw Edward close his hand over hers. They rode, touching, for some minutes, speaking quietly to each other.

“I hope that Eleanor and her babe will not suffer from this,” she said.

Jerval did not answer her. She turned to him and saw his mighty shoulders slumped forward, his head bowed in sleep.

Acre now seemed like the most comfortable haven in the world. At least there Jerval could rest on a cot, protected from the scorching sun. The thought that he could easily have been killed still haunted her. Tentatively, as she had seen Eleanor do, she stretched out her hand and lightly touched his mailed arm.

“My lord,” she said quietly.

“I shall survive, Chandra. The wound is naught. Stop your fretting.”

“Is it so unmanly to admit that you feel pain? I am still angry with you about this wound.”

He grinned at her. “Nay, Chandra, I will admit it, I feel pain. However, you did pull me from a pleasant dream.”

The column narrowed as they rode through the Neva Pass, a barren grotto with jagged boulders jutting from its walls around them like armless sentinels. Beyond the pass, she knew, the dusty road veered toward the coast.

Suddenly the air was rent by yells that seemed to come from everywhere as they echoed off the surrounding rocks. Chandra scarce had time to pull in her frightened mare before the screaming Saracens jumped from their crevices, their scimitars whirling over their heads.

“Go to the women!” Jerval shouted at her, and slapped his mailed hand on her palfrey’s rump. Her palfrey jumped forward toward a small clearing, where Edward’s personal guard were forming a circle three men deep around Eleanor and the other women. The English horses were careening into each other, snorting in trapped fear. Dimly, she heard Edward shouting orders even as a screaming Saracen broke through the raging throng toward him. Edward’s sword dipped gracefully downward.

She looked toward Jerval, fear for him clotted in her throat. He was cut off from the men, hacking his sword methodically at three bearded Saracens around him, but he wasn’t up to his full strength. Payn de Chaworth yelled at her to keep close to the women. But she saw her husband’s face, grim with determination. She knew the strength of his arm, and saw that he was weakening. Damn him, he’d been wounded less than four days before, and he was fighting. He could so easily be killed. No, she would not allow it. She yelled at him, but he didn’t hear her. She remembered her promise to him, and knew that she could not keep it. She would not let him die.

She gritted her teeth, reached beneath her robe, and pulled her hunting knife from its leather sheath. She dug her heels into her palfrey’s side and sent him galloping toward her husband. A wild-eyed Saracen lunged toward her, his curved sword arched high above his head. She hurled her knife, and it pierced the man’s chest. He stared at her even as he choked on his cry. She kicked her horse forward and jumped from her saddle to wrench the sword from the man’s hand as he lay on the rocks.

In an instant, she was on her palfrey’s back again, riding frantically toward Jerval, the screams of wounded men filling her ears. She was frightened, so frightened that she could scarce breathe, but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t let him be killed. She flung the heavy scimitar from her left to her right hand, and slashed out with it as she had been taught on the tiltyard. She saw a surprised look on a beardless face, a boy’s face. Dear God, he was young, so very young, and he was staring up at her blankly until his blood spurted from his mouth. She screamed his agony for him, feeling his death as if it were her own. She felt a sharp pain in her right arm, and saw her own blood oozing from her flesh. She looked at her arm stupidly, knowing that his blade could just as easily have entered her breast, but somehow the knowledge of it didn’t really touch her. She felt beads of sweat sting her eyes, and dashed her hand across her face. She had to get to Jerval.

“Chandra!”

She heard Jerval’s shout, and whipped her horse forward. He was at her side in the next instant, hugging his destrier close to her horse’s head. He was trying to protect her, she thought wildly, pushing her behind him toward the rocks. She saw blood at his side and knew that his wound had opened. She would not allow him to die for her.

“À Vernon,” she yelled, and broke away from him, bringing her horse’s rump around to protect his flank. She heard an unearthly shriek and whipped her horse about to see a Saracen leap from an outcropping of rock toward Graelam de Moreton’s back.

Graelam jerked about to see Chandra’s sword slicing into the screaming man’s belly. For an instant, he was frozen into stunned silence. Then a faint smile touched his lips, and his eyes met Jerval’s.

Jerval turned away to meet two Saracens who were bearing down on him. He jerked back on his destrier’s reins, and the mighty horse reared back, striking the neck of one of the Saracens’ mounts. The Saracen went flying, and the other had little chance against Jerval’s sword.

Jerval looked through a blur of sweat to see Chandra, still astride her horse, next to Payn de Chaworth, who had fallen to the ground. She was protecting de Chaworth, who was trying to struggle to his feet, only to fall back as his wounded leg collapsed beneath him. He watched her sword go through a man’s chest, a man who would have killed de Chaworth had she not been there.

Suddenly, it was over. A shout of victory went up. The Saracens were fleeing over the jagged rocks, or riding on horseback like the devil himself back toward the boiling desert. The time had seemed endless, but only ten minutes had passed from the beginning of the assault to its end. The English troops were yelling obscenities and curses at the fleeing Saracens, and bloodcurdling cries of victory.

Jerval dismounted painfully from his destrier. Chandra was leaning over Payn de Chaworth, pressing her palm down as hard as she could over the gaping tear in his leg. Payn de Chaworth was looking up at her with a surprised, crooked smile before he fell on his back, senseless. Chandra ripped off the turban that now hung loose down her back and wrapped it tightly about his thigh to stanch the flow of blood. She pressed down even harder. “It’s working. The blood is slowing.”

Jerval knelt beside her, not speaking until he was certain that the wound had stopped bleeding. He raised his face and found that she was staring at him, relief, and something el

se he could not fathom, in her eyes.

“Your side,” she whispered. “I saw the blood and knew the wound had opened. Oh, God, are you all right? Let me look at your wound, Jerval.”