The Spymaster's Protection (10 page)

“He is staying with you?”

“He did last night. I doubt he will tonight, now that Silvia
has arrived. She has a house in the city.”

“Are you afraid of him, Lady Gabrielle?”

“I try not to be.” She fidgeted with the wide sleeve of her
chainse, both wishing to end her conversation with the handsome Templar and
wishing it could lead to a walk in the moonlit courtyard with him. The wiser
course won. “But it is late and I must leave, Brother de Aubric."

“Do you have an escort home? If not, I would be happy to give
you my escort.”

Oh, Gabrielle was so tempted! "My husband has granted me
two of his guardsmen," she responded. "But thank you for the
offer." With a twinkle in her eye, she stared up at him. "I am again sorry
for teasing you about the goodly share of feminine interest you attract, frère.
I don’t often have occasion to enjoy myself this much socially."

Lucien shook his dark head ruefully.
"I am afraid
that my need to come and go at the palace so frequently has made me the
mistaken object of a few female designs. I have gotten very adept at avoiding
dark corners and encroaching hands."

Gabrielle had to laugh; the image of him being chased into
corners was so amusing. If she could, she would have loved to linger here in
the midst of all these people and continue talking to him. She had been deeply
flattered by his attention tonight. And she had noticed that while many women
had tried to catch his notice, they had failed. It was hard to be troubled by
issues of morality, when she had only to look into that darkened corner to see
her husband and his mistress deeply engaged with one another.

"I would like to visit you at the orphanage soon,
mi'lady," Lucien said, watching her slip a covert glance into the corner where
Reynald still talked with his mistress. "I believe I may have found
several contacts that will help place these children in Muslim homes.”

Her eyes brightened with excitement at the news. "Really?
That is wonderful news! I am at the orphanage every day, except Sunday. Give
yourself enough time for a game of stickball, frère."

"I will make sure to do that, Lady. Have a safe journey
home."

Lucien watched her walk away, and continued to watch her until
the guards Reynald had assigned her fell in place behind her. She was gone no
more than a few minutes when he started to feel an uneasy prickling sensation
crawl up his spine. It was a familiar instinct; one he always heeded. He
wondered what triggered it and looked over to where Reynald and Lady Silvia were
standing. As soon as Gabrielle left the hall, they moved from their corner and
followed at a discreet distance, keeping to the shadows. Lucien traced their
steps. Two of Reynald's men joined them in the courtyard, then left in the same
direction Gabrielle had taken. Soon after, Reynald and Lady Silvia left the
palace as well.

Lucien could not shake his unease. His premonitions of danger
had always served him well. Something in Reynald’s manner aroused his
suspicions. Both he and his leman had left without taking leave of the king and
queen. Reynald’s rank and relationship with the king made that an unusual
oversight and a breach of protocol. And Reynald’s men had been in a hurry.

Lucien decided to follow in Lady de Châtillon's wake. Since
his leaving would cause no breach of protocol, he slipped out easily, without
consequence or notice.

CHAPTER
6

Gabrielle was surprised by how quiet the streets of Jerusalem
were. She had not thought it so late when she had left the royal birthday
party. Originally, she had planned to leave as soon as it was acceptable, but
because of Brother de Aubric’s presence, she had stayed longer. And she had
thoroughly enjoyed the affair, which was unusual for her. Because of the
queen’s generous patronage of the orphanage and her cause, she attended as many
functions as she could tolerate. But she rarely enjoyed any of them.

The frontier court was primarily a military one. Affairs were
usually dominated by talk of war and defense. The women at court were too often
like Lady Elizabeth of Athlith. With too much time on their hands and nothing
meaningful to fill that time, they engaged liberally and indiscriminately in
gossip and dalliances. Gabrielle had few friends at court, and she knew most
saw her as eccentric and strange.

Except Sibylla, whom Gabrielle suspected befriended her
because she deeply disliked Reynald. Despite the fact that her husband had
supported their coup and was secretly called the kingmaker, Sibylla resented
his use of her husband. He and the Templar Grand Master had a stranglehold on
King Guy’s decisions regarding the military affairs of the kingdom. Gabrielle
knew Sibylla wanted her husband to unite the barons of Palestine, not divide
them by listening to only a few.

Politics! It gave her a headache. The kingdom was drowning in
dissention, while Sultan Saladin was building strong alliances within the
Islamic world. Gabrielle loosened her twisted gold turban and lifted it off her
head, then massaged her temples with her fingertips as she leaned back against
the cushioned seat of the litter.

The conveyance was not hers, but Reynald’s. She preferred to
walk or ride her horse. Her husband’s insistence that she use his litter and
bodyguards bemused her. When he had first learned of her work with the orphans,
he had made it abundantly clear he did not approve of it. Gabrielle had not
been surprised by his feelings. Many of the children she rescued had been
victims of villages her husband and father had ruthlessly raided. Reynald hated
all Muslims, regardless of age and gender. His fifteen year imprisonment in an
infidel dungeon in Aleppo had simply intensified what he had always felt.

But Reynald de Châtillon had an astute knowledge of
geopolitical affairs. He ran an effective intelligence network. He commanded
his own army. He held a large, strategic fiefdom that stretched from Amman to
the Red Sea. He had played a powerful and influential role in the entire region
of Outremer since arriving over three decades ago. He had even been married to
the princess of Antioch and held the title of its prince before his
imprisonment. But none of that had ever been enough for him. And, unlike some
of the barons who had established homes here, he had never learned to respect
any of his Muslim tenants and neighbors.

Reynald de Châtillon was a cruel, malevolent man.

He had made it clear to her long ago that he would not ever
waste his manpower to lend her an armed guard for any of her travels.
Therefore, she found it strange that tonight he had freely offered her not only
an armed guard, but his well-appointed litter. The fact that it was being
carried by men who were likely slaves disturbed her. She did not believe in
slavery. But Reynald was deplorably a slave-trader, in addition to all his
other nasty endeavors. And the men at either end of the conveyance were
undoubtedly one of the many slaves that belonged to him.

With her head laid back against the high cushioned seat,
Gabrielle had just begun to shift her thoughts to a more pleasant topic than
her despicable husband when the litter suddenly came to a halt and was set upon
the ground. She waited for several moments, but when no one came to open the
door, she parted the heavy damask curtains and peered out into the black night.

To her surprise, no one was around; not the two burly guards
who had flanked the litter, nor the dark-skinned slaves who had carried it.
Gabrielle stepped out cautiously. They had not stopped on the street where her
house was located. In fact, she did not recognize this street or section of the
city at all.

The disappearance of her escort alarmed her more than her
unknown location. She had heard the two guards talking in low murmurs now and
then. In fact she remembered hearing them growl something at the slaves just a
few minutes before they had stopped. Where had they all gone? How could four
men simply vanish without a sound?

The narrow street was completely deserted. Buildings of three
stories and more loomed over her on either side, and there were no lights
shining behind any of the shuttered windows. As her eyes adjusted to the unlit
street, she decided she must be in a warehouse district of the city, and if
that were so, she was a long way from the safe haven of her home. She was not
even sure she could find her way there, though she finally realized, she must try.

After reaching into the litter to grab her turban, she
withdrew her eating knife from her pocket, pitiful weapon that it was, and
turned in the direction she guessed she must go.

As she moved away from the litter, she kept stealing looks
over her shoulder, hoping the men who had deserted her might reappear. A large
shadow moved out from the corner of a building down the street. It did not look
familiar, although she was too far away to clearly distinguish features. She
stood motionless, waiting to see if it would move in her direction. When it
did, she decided to pick up her skirts and hurry along. In between her soft
leather-soled footfalls, she heard booted feet coming closer. Whoever was
behind her was quickly closing the distance.

At the corner, Gabrielle dropped her turban as she turned to
head in another direction. Casting a quick look over her shoulder as she did
so, she felt the blood drain from her extremities. The shape of the man who had
been following her was alarmingly close. Her quick glimpse told her that he was
dressed in dark garments and turbaned headgear. She stifled the scream that
rose up her throat and broke into an all-out run, her heart pounding with fear
and helplessness. Ducking into a doorway, she grabbed desperately at the door
handle and found the blasted thing locked securely against her. Dashing out
again, she dared another look at her pursuer. Terror nearly paralyzed her. He
was close enough to see that his face was swathed in a black scarf, and there
was a long narrow dagger in his hand. The metal shone with a wicked glimmer in
a sliver of some kind of faint light.

Struggling to keep her wits about her, she darted around
another corner and raced onto a wider street that appeared to lead to some lit
buildings farther ahead. Faint sounds came to her; possibly human voices in the
distance. It was hard to tell over the loud pounding of her heart. If she could
stay in the shadows and keep running, she might be able to reach help before
the man caught up to her. She was swift of foot and agile enough from her
travels and playing with the children at the orphanage, but stealth and
swiftness alone would not save her this night. Yet again, she would need divine
intercession for if left to defend herself with her dinner utensil, she would
surely die this night at the hands of the cutthroat behind her.

+++

Lucien looked around the empty street and controlled his
nervous horse with a stroke of his leather-gloved hand. The night was dark and
moonless, and it was damned hard to see more than a few feet ahead of him. It
was not that late, but this part of the city was deserted. He was pretty sure
he was in the warehouse district, and he did not understand why Lady de
Châtillon’s trail had brought him here. It was a measurable distance from her
home.

The sense of dread he had felt since leaving the palace
increased tenfold. There had been no sign of Reynald and Lady Silvia anywhere
along the way, and now he had lost sight of Lady Gabrielle. Until a few minutes
ago, he had trailed behind her litter, keeping his distance for fear her guards
would hear his horse’s iron shod hoof beats on the cobblestone. He had never
been more than half a furlong behind them, then they had made a turn and
vanished.

Sitting atop his mount, he scanned the area, disgusted with
himself for losing her. Every instinct he had was resounding with alarm. He
decided to take the alley that forked off the street he was on.

It narrowed the farther he went, then widened between two rows
of vacant, multi-storied buildings. It was in the tiny square that he found
Gabrielle’s abandoned litter. His alarm mounted, but he saw no evidence of foul
play, so he did not take the time to dismount and inspect the conveyance. He
kept his horse to a quiet walk as he took a narrow street that led off the
square.

At the end of the block, the gold glitter of expensive cloth
caught his attention. He swung off his horse and picked up the partially
unwound turban that Gabrielle had worn to the king’s party. Remounting, he
headed down the next block. When he got to the thoroughfare that bisected the
street, he looked both ways. To the left, he spotted two dark figures, one in
pursuit of the other. Though, it was some distance, he could make out the shine
of gold fabric on the lead figure. Lucien spurred his horse into a gallop, no
longer concerned about stealth.

+++

Gabrielle whirled at the sound of a horse behind her. She had
no time to discern who it was for the dark figure chasing her was nearly upon
her. No more than ten paces separated them. With an agile leap off a low laying
crate, her attacker dove through the air for her. This time she did scream. Her
lungs vibrated with it in the stillness. Spinning sideways, she jumped out of
his grasp, raising her little jewel encrusted knife as she did so. His lunge
fell inches short of her shoulder. Rolling, he came to his feet, his gleaming
blade aimed at her heart.

Gabrielle brought up both of her arms to defend herself, but
was suddenly pushed aside by a fierce shove from the all white phantom who had
jumped off of his horse to land squarely between her and her assailant.
Stumbling, she fell backwards against a stone wall and collapsed, but quickly
struggled to her feet as her attacker and her defender grappled in hand-to-hand
combat a foot in front of her.

In the dark, it was hard to follow their movements, but as her
mind cleared, Gabrielle could tell the man clothed completely in white was
Lucien de Aubric. Moving out of their way, she looked beyond him and saw his distinctive
black Arabian horse. How he had come to her aid yet again, she had no idea, but
never had she been happier to see a man.