The Spymaster's Protection (2 page)

Behind him, six more men rode up to flank him. One of the two
white robed knights was a long time friend from the Rhineland. The other was a
new recruit, fresh off the boat from France. Lucien turned to his friend.

"Brother Conrad, take Brother Gérard and Serjeants le Broc,
de Chappes, and de Pesmes with you to the front of the caravan where the main
force of the bandits are attacking. Colin," he commanded, glancing over
his mail-covered shoulder to his young squire, "Come with me to the rear.
There appears to be a bit of trouble there, as well."

Good men all, even if his squire and the new recruit had not
seen any real combat. His patrol was outnumbered, but when had three to one
ever bothered a Templar? With a nod to the standard bearer, Lucien shouted a
Templar attack command and led his small unit down the hill to intercept the
bandits.

Once on the flat plain of the valley floor, five of his men
charged into the raiders at the front of the caravan. Lucien watched them
intercept the Saracens, then refocused his attention to the scene unfolding at
the rear of the caravan.

A woman in the garb of a Muslim was running with a group of
children away from two Arab raiders on horseback. They reached the dubious
protection of a rocky outcrop. The woman swung her dark head to look behind her
at the riders closing on them, then dashed off with the children clustered
close around her, her bright colored silk headscarf trailing behind her.

Lucien could see they were headed toward a grove of gnarled
olive trees. On foot, they could not hope to outrace the mounted bandits.
Lucien wondered if he and Colin could even catch up in time to save them.

He kicked his spurs into his charger's flanks and loaded an
arrow into his small recurved bow. He'd learned to use the Saracen weapon from
a turcopole, and he could rapidly shoot half a dozen arrows from it on
horseback.

Guiding his well-trained horse with the pressure of his
thighs, he aimed for the lead attacker. The first arrow went wide. The second
caught the man in the shoulder. Unfortunately, neither arrow stopped his dogged
pursuit of the woman. The second bandit turned sideways on his horse to load
his own bow. In rapid succession, he shot several arrows their way, but Lucien
and the boy behind him deftly dodged them.

The woman and children ran to an immense boulder that rose out
of the rocky plain like a sentinel. Lucien saw her gather her charges close and
flatten herself to the smooth granite. He pulled his sword and confronted the
bandit who swung his mount to block him. He had no time to trade more than a
few blows with the Saracen. The lead attacker was nearly upon the woman and her
children.

Waving his squire past him toward the woman, he dispatched his
turbaned assailant in a vicious horizontal swing that nearly cut the man in
half. He didn’t stay to watch the infidel fall from his horse. Ahead of him,
the woman had started off toward the orchard again. Lucien watched as the
children fanned out around her screaming and crying. His squire had his lance
couched. In an attempt to unseat the man chasing her, he rode toward the
Saracen and aimed for his chest. At the last instant, the bandit swiveled on
his light-weight saddle and caught the boy on the side of his helmeted head
with his curved blade. The blow knocked Colin from his horse.

Lucien spared him a glance as he raced past, relieved that he
was struggling to his feet.

The woman, however, had tripped and fallen. She clutched a
squirming infant to her chest. As she looked over her shoulder and saw the
deadly approach of her attacker, she curled the child in a protective tuck
beneath her body.

The Saracen reined his horse to an abrupt halt and raised his
blade for a lethal downward strike. Lucien leaped from his horse, knowing he
could never position it in time to save the woman. With a fierce cry, he dove
in front of her and blocked the enemy’s blow with his Templar broadsword. The
vibration of the impact slithered down his sword arm, nearly numbing it. The
woman beneath his feet screamed.

He called for her to move, but she remained frozen on the
ground, dangerously underfoot until Colin came over to drag her safely out of
the way. Noticing for the first time that his companion was dead on the ground
and that his companions were fleeing the scene of the raid, the bandit abruptly
spun his horse away from Lucien and kneed it toward the rest of his party. The
Templars under Lucien’s command gave immediate chase, so Lucien let the man go
and turned toward the woman and his squire. "Are you injured?" he
asked first Colin, then her.

His squire shook his head, but the woman was on her knees,
bent over the children clustering around her, checking them. When he repeated
his inquiry, she lifted her face to him, and the moment she did, Lucien sucked
in a sharp breath, feeling as if he’d suddenly had the wind knocked out of him.

"It seems God has sent me the guardian angel I prayed
for."

As she stared up at him, he found himself speechlessly
ensnared in her incredible blue eyes. He had no idea what to say to her, so he
raised a skeptical eyebrow and managed an equally skeptical half-smile.

With all those children, he had expected her to be older. Her
youth surprised him. The children ranged in age from one to ten. He supposed if
she started having them at fourteen, they could have been hers. Then he looked
more closely at the six children and realized that none were as light-skinned
as she was. They were all definitely Arabic, and though her skin was glided by
the sun to a rich golden hue, she appeared to be a Frank.

Despite the dirt that smudged her pert nose and honey-toned
skin, she was uncommonly lovely. Hair the color of dark Arabian coffee hung in
loosely curled disarray past her waist, and under the bright midday sun, he
could see that it was shot with gold.

Her lustrous tresses framed a delicately featured face that
was sculpted with high cheekbones, dimpled cheeks, a softly rounded chin, a
small elegant nose, and lips as luscious and soft as ripe peaches. Tiny wisps
of fine dark hair curled wildly at her hairline, above gently arched eyebrows and
a high, unmarred forehead.

But despite the loveliness of her facial features, it was her
eyes that Lucien could not seem to drag his away from. They were a dark indigo
blue that reminded him of the precious lapis lazuli stone mined in northern
Persia. At his continued scrutiny, thick black lashes lowered over their
mesmerizing depths.

It was obvious that he was making her uneasy with his silent
inspection, but she was very beautiful, and he couldn't imagine what she was
doing out here without male protection.

The toddler she had lifted into her arms began to wiggle in
earnest, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"Frère, could you help us right our wagon?"

Her cloud of hair lifted and swirled around her in the desert
breeze, and her softly feminine voice drifted over Lucien like a tangible
caress, reminding him that it had been a long time since he had been in the
company of such an intriguing woman.

His reaction to her stunned him. Desires that had lain dormant
due to his vows and his discipline suddenly ignited in a swift and fierce
response that left him profoundly unsettled.

Attempting to regain his composure, he turned toward the
overturned wagon behind them. “My squire and I can set it back on its wheels
again. It looks light enough. Is that the donkey that was pulling it?"

She looked toward the animal grazing nearby on a sparse patch
of green, and nodded. "Our driver was killed as he tried to race away from
the bandits. I believe he was thrown from the wagon when it overturned. I think
he broke his neck." She pointed toward the man lying prone in the dirt,
his head at an odd angle against a rock.

"Was he a friend?"

She shook her head no. "I only hired him in Amman."

"Your destination, madam?"

"Jerusalem." She studied the Templar for a moment.
"My name is Gabrielle de Châtillon."

Lucien was taken aback by her revelation. "Are you
related to Reynald de Châtillon, Baron of Oultrejourdan?"

She gave him a short solemn nod. "He is my husband."

Lucien sucked in a breath and swore softly. "God's bones,
Lady de Châtillon, where is your armed guard?"

"There is no armed guard." Her sapphire blue eyes
met his defiantly.

"Why?" he demanded angrily, completely bewildered by
why a powerful man like Lord de Châtillon let his wife roam the countryside
unescorted.

"It is complicated, and none of your business,
frère."

Lucien scowled and shook his head. "Foolishness!"

"Not at all, frère," she disputed, now bristling
with anger. "God watches over us, though I am beginning to doubt that you
are the guardian angel I asked him to send us."

Gabrielle heard him blow out a derisive snort before he turned
and waved his squire to the task of righting their wagon. Her back stiffened
with affront.

In the glaring afternoon sun, she watched her rescuers heave and
push the little four-wheeled cart into its upright position. She was still
disturbed by the close assessment the Templar knight had given her. Beneath his
helm, she’d seen that he was dark complected and dark eyed, with long thick
lashes that should have belonged to a female. Though he hadn't smiled, his
well-shaped mouth framed straight dazzling white teeth that stood out
noticeably against his deeply bronzed face.

Once he pulled off his metal helmet and the mail coif
underneath, she could see that his hair was as black as a raven's feathers. His
closely cropped beard and neatly trimmed moustache were black, as well, giving
his entire face a dangerously dark and menacing appearance.

He was taller than most fighting men, but every bit as
muscular and broad through the shoulders and chest. His long legs were encased
in chain mail and covered to below his knees in his white surcoat. Around his
trim waist he wore a plain, undecorated leather belt from which his Templar
sword hung. Across his back, he wore another. His hands were encased in leather
gloves and gauntlets.

Once revealed, she saw that he had a handsome face; a face
that was all hard angles and planes, carved with an arrogant Roman nose, set
below deep brown eyes and a pair of slashing dark brows that seemed to be drawn
low in a perpetual scowl. He appeared to assess everything around him with
meticulous scrutiny.

As she waited for the two men to right their wagon, she
scolded herself for her unusual interest in the knight. It was definitely
inappropriate to be ogling a man who was a monk and a Templar. Still, it was
hard not to stare at someone as physically arresting as her rescuer.

While he and his squire were hitching the donkey to the cart,
two of the merchants walked up to them. "Brothers, where are the rest of
your party? We have wounded and dead."

"I have a daughter that those scoundrels carted off. You
should be after her," the lead merchant exclaimed.

The Templar turned to the two men. "Why did you have no
armed guard acting as escort for all these people?"

"We heard this was a safe road."

"And now, you know better," the knight announced in
disgust. "Let's see to your dead and wounded." With a wave of a hand
he beckoned his squire, then turned to Gabrielle. "Can you drive the
wagon?" When she nodded affirmatively, he and the young man with him began
scooping up children and loading them into the cart.

The toddler in Gabrielle's arms finally managed to wiggle
free, and with a cry of delight, began to run toward a small doll lying in the
dirt, in the distance. Gabrielle immediately gave chase, dismayed by the baby's
sudden escape.

Behind her, she heard the Templar call out to her with a
command that sounded like
drop.
Too late she realized why. From the
orchard, a lone Arab on a horse stepped out of the trees and raised his bow.
Within the blink of an eye, the bolt slammed into her right shoulder, so hard
it knocked her instantly off her feet.

A loud virulent curse was followed almost instantly by a pair
of strong arms scooping her up off the rocky ground. She looked into the
thickly lashed brown eyes above her, then felt her head fall backwards as a
wave of darkness sucked her into unconsciousness.

+++

Lucien guided the cart over the rocky ground, avoiding as many
bumps as he could. In the bed of the wagon, Colin sat with Lady de Châtillon's
head and shoulders supported in his lap, a thick cloth from a ripped grain bag
pressed tightly to her shoulder wound. Most of the bleeding had stopped, but
Lucien knew if he hit a deep rut, it would begin again.

The rest of the patrol had returned, having recovered the
merchant's fair-haired daughter, but not the bandits, who had abandoned her in
their escape. The wagon behind them had been emptied of its grain and loaded
with the dead. There were too many.

Once they reached the Hospitaller hospice at Jericho, they
would bury the dead in consecrated graves. Lucien offered up a heartfelt prayer
that Madame de Châtillon would not be among those they had to bury.

Such senseless stupidity; traipsing across these trade routes
with no armed guard! The pilgrims, Lucien could understand. Rarely did any of
them come to the Holy Land with anything in their pockets. But merchants and a
noblewoman? Both should have sufficient resources to hire an armed guard. God's
blood! Did none of them realize they were traveling through a war torn land?

CHAPTER 2

Having assisted his brethren in burying the dead from the
caravan,
Lucien de Aubric stood at the foot of Gabrielle de Châtillon's
bed at the hospice in Jericho while she slept. The two nuns who staffed the
small women's ward left for the kitchen to fetch the midday meal for their
patients.

Lucien took advantage of their absence to study the woman he
had found in the desert. He and his brothers had managed to deliver her and the
others to this Hospitaller hospice yestereve. The brother who had examined her
had told him the wound was not too deep, and that the lady would be able to
travel within a few days. The physicians of the Order of the Hospital of St
John of Jerusalem were nearly as skilled as their Arab counterparts. Lady de
Châtillon would heal well under their care.