The Spymaster's Protection (37 page)

There were other Franks in the prison cells here. He had
passed by them often enough as he was being taken in and out of his own fetid
cell. Most were simply dark heaps on the stone floor. A few, though, had stood
at their cell doors and watched him through the bars as he was being questioned
and beaten. At first, Lucien had been afraid one of them would recognize him,
but no one had. Some had even cursed him as a filthy heathen. His disguise had
certainly fooled his fellow Christian soldiers, probably because he spoke to
his captors in perfect Arabic and was as dark skinned as them.

Letting his head fall back against the damp stone wall of his
dark cell, Lucien closed his eyes and thought of Gabrielle. God in Heaven, he’d
been frightened in the bazaar when she had pushed through the crowd at his
arrest! If she had said one word in his defense, his captors would surely have
arrested her. Her gender would not have stopped them from brutalizing her if
they had suspected her association with him.

By now, Omar and Nephrim should have her on her way back to
Jerusalem. He had instructed them to take her to Hazir if anything should
happen to him. It was why he had brought the two young men with them to
Damascus. It was not the best situation for her, but she would be safer with
her Arab friend than anywhere else in the Holy City, at least as long as she
kept her return hidden.

Though there had been no further attempts on her life since
arriving in Damascus, an assassin could still be out there waiting for her
somewhere. Without his protection, she was still way too vulnerable, but
Tiberius would not be a safe haven, not with Saladin’s troops massing nearby
and de Ridefort prowling the region. If Saladin had not killed de Châtillon, it
would not be long before he joined his friend there.

Reynald could not be allowed to get his hands on Gabrielle.
She’d be dead in a heartbeat if she fell into his custody. By God’s Holy Blood!
Lucien cursed in the darkness. He needed to be free of this filthy, wretched
cell!

Too bruised to ease his agitation by pacing his cell, he
dropped his head onto his arms, which were folded over his raised knees. He
heard the guards coming toward his cell. Their approach incited an uproar of
whistling and shouting from the cells that lined the torchlit corridor leading
to his. Lucien heard the ribald remarks and lifted his head. It sounded as if
there was a woman in the corridor.

He was pushing painfully and stiffly to his feet when his door
was unlocked. Metal grating on stone accompanied the blinding light of the
torch one of the guards held aloft.

“Here is your doxy, Templar dog!” the other guard laughed as
he shoved someone into the room. “The little idiot from the square couldn’t
seem to live without you.”

Lucien felt his limbs quake as they struggled to support him
and the woman thrown at him. She fell against him with a soft cry as he reached
out to catch her. Though he was blinded by the sudden light in his dark cell,
he instantly recognized the shape and scent of her.

“Enjoy your stay, little lady,” one of the guards jeered.
“When you’re done here, we have many other uses for you.”

The door was slammed shut and relocked amid much laughter and
crude jesting. Lucien overheard one of the guards inform the prisoners that the
cooperative ones might earn the reward of her. He shut out the remarks and held
the woman in his arms by her shoulders to look at her as best he could.

“Gabrielle?! My God, what are you doing here? For the love of
Christ, how did Omar and Nephrim….”

“Oh, Lucien!” Her hand rose to his face, searching it
frantically. “I could not leave Damascus without trying to help you!”

Furious at the turn of events, he continued to hold her at
arm’s length. “And how, in God’s name, is this going to help?”

Gabrielle responded to his anger by shaking her head from side
to side, then slumping to her knees on the straw covered stones. “Oh, this is
not what I had planned!”

Lucien followed her down and lifted her onto his lap,
unwilling to let her sit on the filthy dungeon floor. He could barely see her,
so he moved his hands over her face and braided hair.

“Did they hurt you?” His hands wandered slowly over her upper
body and trouser clad legs. He could discern no injuries, but he had to be
sure.

“No,” she rushed to assure him. “I am fine.” Squinting,
Gabrielle tried to see him, too. With a little huff of frustration, she
proceeded to do as he had done; inspect him with her fingertips. “Have they
hurt you?”

Lucien’s single laugh was humorless. “It is of no import.”

She heard the truth of the matter in his self-contemptuous
tone and searched his upper body and face more slowly. “They have hurt you!”
Her fingertips detected the blood encrusted lacerations on his beloved face,
the torn remnants of his clothing, and the way he flinched when she probed his
back and ribs.

“Tell me how you came to be here,” he demanded with angry
insistence, though he held her with the utmost tenderness.

“I came to the citadel and asked to see the commander. I told
the guards that I was Reynald de Châtillon’s wife, and that I wanted to
negotiate a release of one of their prisoners.” She heard Lucien’s whispered
oath and rushed on. “I thought they would be happy to trade me for you; that
the sultan would love to have some leverage against my despicable husband.”

“And what made you think Reynald would come for you or even
ransom you?”

It was a cruel truth, but Gabrielle was prepared for it. “He
wants me dead. Saladin does not murder women and children. As his hostage,
Reynald would not be free of me.”

Lucien heard the anguish in her voice and wrapped her tightly
in his arms. Resting his chin on the top of her head, he hid the jolt of pain
that pierced him as she pressed against his ribcage. “Little fool,” he murmured
against her hair. “You have placed yourself in great danger. This is no place
for you, but I will die before I let them lay a hand on you.”

She drew back and found her eyes had adjusted to the dark
enough to be able to see more of the man holding her. “My plan did not work,
Lucien. The guards did not believe me and would not take me to their commander.
One of them recognized me from the souk. He called me an idiot, and declared
that if I was crazy enough to come chasing after you, I could join you.”

Lucien pulled her close again, steeling himself against the
pain embracing her caused. “Aw, Gabi! It was stupid, but I understand why you
did it. I love you for it, but now I must come up with a way to get us both out
of here.” He rocked her and kissed her brow, then her cheeks, finally her lips.

It was long time before Gabrielle pulled her mouth away from
his. “Farouk said he was going to try to do something. Maybe he and some of
your friends will find a way to get us out of here.”

“Maybe,” he replied hopefully, for her benefit. He did not
think Farouk would be able to get them out of here, though. Such intervention
would risk exposing himself and his family to being arrested as Frank
sympathizers. “Are Omar and Nephrim still in the city?”

“Yes. I was supposed to leave with them for Jerusalem this
morning.”

Lucien nodded, refraining from any more scoldings. What was
done was done. He’d just have to think of some way to get them out of this
mess. He couldn’t let Gabrielle linger in this hellhole, and he would die, just
as he had vowed to her, before he let any of these whoresons, Arab or Frank,
lay a hand on her.

He’d never escaped from a prison before. He’d never had to.
Unlike many of his compatriots, he’d never been captured. It was the devil’s
curse that he found himself in such a position now, with this woman by his
side. He’d been holding onto the hope that his captors would grow weary of
holding him at some point and throw him back out on the streets. Now that
wasn’t likely to happen. Gabrielle presented a new and entirely too appealing
prospect for their twisted pleasures.

Sweet God! What was he going to do?

“Lucien, I need to look at your injuries.”

She felt him shrug them off. “They are nothing.”

“They do not feel like nothing.”

With that deduction, she rose from his lap and marched to the
cell door.

Groaning, Lucien called out her name in a loud, raspy whisper.

“
Genna!
” she reminded him over her shoulder before she
grabbed the small iron barred window in the door

Going up on tiptoe, she shouted out to the guards. “You there!
Hello!”

Lucien shot off the floor, only shooting up was not something
he could do very well after the beatings he had suffered. He stumbled behind
her and reached out for a wall.

“For God’s sake,
Genna
!” he said with a groaned emphasis
on her pseudo name.

“Sirs!” she yelled again in Arabic through the bars. “I have
need of one of you.” For extra measure, she rattled the door and banged against
it with her fists repeatedly.

Soon several prisoners in the cells adjacent to theirs were echoing
her demand. “Did you hear her, infidel?” one of the them said in Arabic. “The
woman has need of you. Are you so daft, man, as to ignore her?”

Lucien groaned and prepared himself to take down the first man
who came through the door.

One guard finally came, but he did not open the door. “What do
you want, whore?”

“I need a bucket of clean water, a loaf of bread, without
vermin in it, and a candle or torch.”

The entire cell block erupted in raucous laughter, including
the guard, who threw in a few insults in the course of his laughter.

“I will make it worth your while,” Gabrielle told him,
ignoring the uproar of bawdy male catcalls and Lucien’s curses behind her.

“Oh, you will do that, without the bread and water, whore,”
the guard sneered.

“I am not a whore! I told you that many times. I cannot help
it if you are too stupid to see that.” She leaned forward and murmured, “But it
is not my body that I offer you. I have a valuable piece of jewelry that I will
give you if you do as I ask.”

The key turned in the iron lock. Lucien grabbed Gabrielle
around the waist and yanked her back against the wall, then moved in front of
her. She scooted out behind the protection of his large, pain-racked body and
pulled her mother’s necklace from her tunic, holding it up for the guard to
see. The delicate gold chain and the stone embedded in the crescent moon
pendant glittered in the light of the torch the guard held.

He took an eager step toward it, and Gabrielle scampered over
to a drain on the floor. She held out one hand to forestall Lucien’s move
toward the guard, while the other dangled the prize over the drain hole. “You
may have this if you will bring me the bucket of clean water, the loaf of good
bread, and that torch or candle.”

With his eyes fixed on the gleaming object hanging from her
fingertips, the bare-headed Arab took a step toward her. “I will have it now,
woman.”

Gabrielle shook her head adamantly. “I will drop it in this
drain unless you fetch me what I want first.” She leveled a threatening stare
on the man, lowered the necklace a few inches toward the grated drain, then
glanced toward Lucien who was poised to strike. “Now, go, before my friend
decides to tear you limb from limb.”

The guard gave Lucien a dubious look, grunted, then left,
casting them back into near total darkness.

“Tear him from limb to limb?” Lucien echoed and laughed
weakly. “I doubt I could tear a piece of bread from limb to limb at the moment,
my brave champion.”

“Exactly,” Gabrielle pronounced as she stepped toward him and
helped ease him back to the ground. “That is why I bartered for the bread and
water. You cannot get us out of here if you don’t eat and let me care for your
wounds.”

“And the light?”

“So I can see how badly you are hurt.” Her hands caressed his
face on both sides, then tangled in his beard with a tiny tug. “And because I
cannot abide the dark or rats.”

“But your mother’s necklace is special to you, Gabi.”

“Not as special as you are, Lucien.”

He reached over to cup her head in his large hands and bring
her mouth to his. “I love you, Gabi.”

“And I you, Lucien,” she whispered back. “You will get us out
of here. I know it. You have always taken the best care of me.”

He could only bend his head and press his brow to hers. “Aw,
Gabi….”

She kissed him as tenderly as she could so as not to hurt his
cut lips. “Keep the rats from me. That will be enough for now, my love.” And
with that, she reached into her boot and withdrew her small gold eating knife.
“Do not get yourself killed with this. It may only be good for the rats. I
could not fit my dagger in my boot.”

He laughed, but it ended in a raspy cough, then a grunt of
pain. “My brave-hearted lady. You are the gift of a lifetime.”

+++

Gabrielle kept her word, as did the guard. By the light of the
narrow candle the Arab brought her, she cleaned Lucien’s many wounds, dipping
one end of her tunic into handfuls of water over and over again. The rest she
saved for drinking. The bread they shared and finished so the rats would not
also feast. There was not much Gabrielle could do for Lucien’s bruised back and
ribs. She examined them as gently as she could, and did not think anything was
broken, but he would be in pain for a while. Tearing another strip from her
tunic, she dunked it in the cool water and laid the cloth against his ribs.
After repeating it several times, she decided it seemed to help. Either that or
Lucien deliberate chose to make her think so.

She could tell he was very distressed over having her locked
in the fetid cell with him. It did smell foul, but at least the candle kept the
rats away and gave her some small protection from the dark. It wasn’t going to
last through the night, though.