Joanna de Chaworth handed her a piece of bread. “Here, Chandra, you must eat something. Eleanor sent me to fetch you. She wants you to rest now.”
Chandra looked at the bread, held out to her as the dead woman should have seen it. “Nay,” she whispered. “I have no wish for food. Oh, God, Joanna, the waste of it, all the suffering, it is too much to bear.”
When the wounded men were tended, Chandra walked to the doorway and sank down, waiting again for Jerval to return. The night air was cool upon her face. Over the housetops beyond, she could see black smoke billowing upward from the funeral pyres.
“Lady Chandra!”
She looked up to see Lambert running toward her.
“It’s my lord,” he said, clutching at her arm. “He has been wounded. The Saracens came upon us from the rocks.”
Geoffrey Parker, Edward’s physician, jumped to his feet and hurried to the door. For an instant, Chandra could not move. She could bear no more suffering, no more death. Oh, God, please, not Jerval.
“My lady!” Geoffrey shouted to her. “Prepare a place for him, quickly.”
“God’s teeth!” she heard Jerval bellow, pain deep in his throat. “Do not tear my flesh from my damned bones!” He was carried through the door by Payn, Rolfe, and two men-at-arms.
“Do not worry,” Payn de Chaworth said, casting her a quick glance over his shoulder. “The wound is not deep, but the blood has congealed and stuck to his shirt.”
Chandra could only nod. She smoothed down a bed of blankets, and Jerval was lowered, cursing, onto his back.
“By all the saints’ misery, Payn,” he said, gritting his teeth, “would that you were not such a clumsy oaf.”
“Aye, and you not such a noble lout.”
Chandra fell to her knees beside him, pushed back the sweaty hair from his forehead and held his face between her hands. “You told me you would be all right, damn you. You promised me you would take care, but you didn’t. You lied to me. I am very angry at you about this, Jerval.”
He smiled up at her through the gnawing pain in his side. “I did promise you, and I meant it. I swear that I did not mean to get hurt. Now, the wound isn’t deep. Stop your worrying.”
“My lady,” Geoffrey Parker said, and pushed her away. She watched as Lambert and Payn unstrapped his armor and stripped off his bloody clothes. Geoffrey probed at his torn flesh. “I am relieved, Sir Jerval,” he said. “It is but a needle and thread I’ll need for you.” He yelled for more water.
Edward leaned over Jerval, shaking his head in grim humor. “What have you to say, sir? I send you forth to dispatch the heathen, and it is you who are on your back.”
“I will survive, sire,” Jerval said.
“The blood is clotted,” Chandra said. “I will bathe him. He will be all right, sire. If he isn’t, I will kill him.”
Geoffrey saw shock in her eyes, and nodded. It was better to let her care for her husband. “Aye, you bathe the wound, then call me.”
Jerval looked up at her and smiled. “I am not going to die, Chandra, even though you were not at my side to protect me.”
“I should have been with you. I can fight, as you well know. I don’t know how you can laugh about it, damn you.” She stared down at his naked body, at the dried blood clotted over his right side and streaking down his leg. “Damn you, you could have been killed.”
He winced from the pain in his side, and it got worse. Jerval felt it deep, and knew he had to control it, else his wife would howl, steal his sword, and go after the Saracens by herself. He closed his eyes. He could still see the wild-eyed Saracen, hear his bloodcurdling yell as he swooped down from his horse’s back, his curved blade but inches from Payn’s neck. Jerval’s sword had slashed deep into the man’s leg, so deep that its tip had wounded the horse beneath him. The beast had snorted in pain and fallen on the man, crushing him beneath its massive body. Jerval had pulled off his helmet to rub the burning sweat from his eyes, and it was then that two Saracens had come at him. He had thrown his helmet at one of them, but the other had reached his side with the tip of his scimitar. He had been unlucky, for their force had far outnumbered the Saracen band. He felt Chandra’s hand lightly touch his shoulder, and he opened his eyes.
“Drink this, Jerval. It will ease the pain.”
Lambert helped him to rise from the blankets enough to drink from the goblet. The liquid was sweet and cool, and almost immediately, Jerval felt a soothing warmth pervade his mind. When the pain lessened, he opened his eyes to see Chandra, a bowl of water and a cloth in her hand.
“Thank God,” he said, grinning up at her, “that Geoffrey will stitch me up. I don’t want to look like the surcoat that you mended for me.”
“Please don’t jest about this,” she said in a whisper. He stared up at her, but he said nothing as she dropped to her knees beside him. “I will bathe the wound now. I will try not to hurt you more than I must.”
She found that she had to scrub at the jagged flesh to cleanse away the clotted blood. She felt his muscles tense beneath her hand, and stilled.
“I’m sorry, Jerval, but it must be done.”
“Aye, love, I know. Just get it over with.” He closed his eyes again and clenched his teeth. “Forgive my foul odor. I smell like stinking death.”
“I will bathe all of you when I am through.” Her words sounded strangely distant to him.
When Geoffrey had finished stitching his flesh, he rose and said gently, “You did well, my lady. Sir Jerval is young and strong. He will be fit within the week. You may bathe him now, if you wish.”
She sponged him with warm, soapy water. He cracked open his eyes and smiled hazily up at her. “Ah, that feels good,” he said. Her hand stroked down his chest to his belly, and he felt her hesitate, but just for a moment.
“I’m sorry that I cannot show you my appreciation, Chandra, but even that part of me is beyond tired.”
“I see that it is,” she said.
He smiled, simply couldn’t help it. Of course, she didn’t leave his side. She talked and talked, of nothing really, or she just sat in silence, staring at him.
“Chandra,” he said finally, “you need to walk about and get some fresh air.”
She just shook her head. “There is no fresh air, not anywhere in this place.”
“I have to relieve myself, and I would prefer Lambert to help me.”
She left him for but a minute, but upon her return, he was surrounded by Edward, Payn, and Eustace de Leybrun. She sank down in a corner, listening to them speak quietly of their losses and what was to be done for the Nazarenes.
When she awoke the next morning, Jerval was sitting up, eating a hunk of bread and drinking ale. “You look better,” she said. “It is a good thing that you do. I am still not happy with you.”
He leaned back a moment, looking at her from beneath half-closed eyelids. “I have never seen you so frightened,” he said after a moment, “save after you were taken by Alan Durwald. I did not realize it then, for you were full of cocky bravado, but you were terrified.”
“You believe me a fool? Of course I was scared, but it wasn’t like this. Nothing has ever been like this. That was just me, but this is you.”
She held him more dear than she held herself? He would have to think about this. He handed her a piece of bread. “I dreamed last night of Camberley, the lakes and the Cumbrian Mountains. I think I would gladly give a year of my life to be back there now, with you, even to hear my mother complaining about your throwing the distaff at her.”
She stared at him, not smiling as he had intended. She said, “Why, Jerval?”
“Why what, Chandra?”
She waved her arm about her. “Did you know that it would be like this? The horror? The hopelessness?”
“I suppose so, for I have fought before, Chandra. But this bad? This is beyond what I have seen before. Here there is such poverty, such wretchedness, and this damnable heat that eats into your very soul. No, I haven’t seen anything l
ike this.”
“But you knew it would be bad. Why did you agree to come with Edward, if you knew that war was ever thus, and that you could be killed?”
He looked away from her a moment, weighing his words. “One wonders why God, in His infinite mercy, wishes His followers to win battles in His name, if this is the outcome. We have spoken many times, Chandra, about a woman’s responsibilities, and a man’s. It is my duty to keep all that I hold dear safe against my enemies. It does not mean that I am less enraged than you by the waste of it. But my duty forbids me to turn away and leave other men to fight, and possibly die, in my stead.”
“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.”
“I am fine.” Then he saw the blood streaking down her arm, and felt himself go cold. “You’re hurt,” he said, his voice sounding so harsh that Chandra jumped.
“It’s nothing at all. It all happened so quickly. From one instant to the next, they were on us. By God, we beat them off.”
The memories of the battle rose in her mind. She saw the boy’s face, so clearly, right there, staring at her. She rose shakily to her feet and stumbled away from Jerval toward a narrow crevice in one of the jagged rocks. Nauseating bile rose in her throat, and she fell to her knees. She wretched until her belly was empty, then wretched more, doubling over. She felt his hands on her shoulders, steadying her.
“Here, Chandra, drink this.”
She accepted the water skin from Jerval and forced herself to swallow the cool water, then rinse out her mouth. “What is wrong with me? I cannot even stand.” And then she tried to stand again, but her legs wouldn’t hold her. She felt his arms about her, and she leaned against him.
She said, her voice deep with pain and horror, “We are so fragile, our lives so easily snuffed out in an instant with the twist of a hand. It is just too much.” She turned about on her knees to face him. “To know that you are about to die, to become nothing in but a moment. And to kill, to rob another of life. Dear God, he was only a boy, and I killed him. I didn’t hesitate, just killed him, and I saw the surprise on his face.”
Jerval fell to his knees and gathered her shaking body into his arms. “He did what he had to, just as you did. Fighting the Saracens isn’t like fighting the bandits at home. These are not bandits, men ruled only by their greed—nay, these are men who believe as strongly as you and I that what they think is right. We are heathen to them. We are the evil ones.
“I think for the first time you were truly aware that the specter of death was on your shoulder.” As he spoke the words, she felt him stiffen. “You could have been killed playing the hero for me.”