Glayer had been sincere in his desire to destroy Constantine Gerard, but in truth, there was nothing for him to go back to if he was turned away from the Holy Land. He’d come here to make a name for himself—to earn lands, riches, perhaps even a fief of his own. He would not become Baldwin’s servant in Tiberias, traded to some Frankish baron as if he were little more than a page. To be laughed at here, then forced back to his mother’s poor cottage on the westernmost point of England with nothing to show for his years away than a nose more crooked than when he’d left.
His vision blurred as he came into the blinding light of the bailey, and the shimmers of heat floated up from the baked earth. Glayer threw up a forearm and ducked his head as he struck out into the center of the space, to shield his eyes from the sun and from the sight of whomever might be watching him, laughing at him. He walked quickly.
He hated Gerard. And Baldwin. And his mother. Hated this damned oven of a fortress; hated the men it sheltered. He glanced up and saw the light-colored robes of Saracens still gathered near the wide gates, obviously readying to depart. In their midst was General Abdal himself, the soldiers around him protecting both the messenger and the coin Felsteppe knew he still carried. An ambitious man, Abdal, who knew how to wield the power he had been given in this land of enemies and thieves.
Unlike weak, sick, stupid Baldwin. Glayer wondered if anyone else but he knew how many thousands of dinars Saladin had offered in exchange for the razing of this godforsaken place. For Christ’s sake, the foundation wasn’t even . . .
Felsteppe stopped suddenly in the blinding, hot bailey, his heart pounding, and looked down at the crumpled rendering of Chastellet’s most private parts. His skin went icy, clammy, as he raised his head, and the tall General Abdal turned toward him as if Felsteppe had called his name. The two men stared at each other for a long moment.
And Glayer Felsteppe realized his time had come at last.
Chapter 1
March 1182
England
Dori came awake with a gasp and then gave a weak cry as the side of her head banged into a hard surface. Her neck was too weak to hold herself erect in time to avoid the next rocking blow and she tried to throw out her hands in the churning darkness as her lungs struggled to draw sufficient breath. Oh, God, she must be in hell—a cold, damp, black hell that was trying to shake her bones from her body and deafen her with its roar.
She spun her fear into strength and lunged forward, praying she wouldn’t launch herself into an eternal descent. “Help me,” she croaked, her arms flailing in the darkness.
But someone caught her. “There now,” a stern voice cautioned, taking firm grasp of her left forearm and right shoulder, pushing her backward once more but so that she sat aright. “You must come to your senses, Lady Theodora. Light the lamp, boy; perhaps if she can see, she will not be in such a fright.”
Dori’s lips felt half numb, blubbery, so that the words she struggled to speak were little more than humming mumbles. Panic wrapped around her heart like an icy fist. Where was she? Why was she so frightened of this dark place? And why did she feel as though she had been dunked in the frigid spring river running past Thurston Hold? Cold, so cold . . .
A searing, yellow-white flash blinded her; she hadn’t known for certain her eyes had been open. Now she squeezed them shut and tried to turn her head away from the explosion of brightness, rewarding herself with another blow to the side of her face as the seat beneath her lurched and sent her into what was possibly a wooden panel.
Then the roaring sound filtered through her panic: wheels on a road. The rocking, jostling—she must be in a carriage. It was night. But why was she wet? And what was that dreadful smell, rich and fecund, like—
Blood. She was smelling her own blood.
And it was in that moment she remembered: her baby. They had stolen her baby. She’d heard the weak cry through the haze of her stupor and then it had gone. They must have poisoned her again to keep her docile. And now she was in a carriage traveling in the night to . . . where?
But she was not alone, and the voice of her chaperon was all too familiar. Dori opened her eyes the tiniest crack, tears flooding and blurring her vision as she struggled to confirm the identity of the person across the short space from her. The damned priest, Simon, whose presence had turned what should have been the happiest moments of her life—her wedding, the birth of her child—into nightmares, was in the opposite seat, along with a young boy who was carefully hanging the lamp on a hook next to the carriage door. The servant lad showed no interest in her at all as he sat back against the seat, his face turned toward the curtained window.
“How do you fare, my lady?” Simon asked matter-of-factly, as if he was doing nothing more out of the ordinary than greeting her in the morning.
Dori tried to blink away the nonsensical water from her eyes—she wasn’t crying, yet the tears continued to flow. “Where is my baby?” she croaked, feeling as if her throat was lined with blades and tasting the film of old vomit in her mouth. She felt a prickling deep behind her ears.
The priest swallowed. “He is safe. He is with your husband.”
He—a boy. She’d borne a son.
“Then he is not safe. Take me to him. He needs me. He needs to feed.”
“His needs will be attended to.”
The rocking carriage caused the bile to rise in her throat and she strangled for a moment, fighting the urge to vomit. “I’m ill,” she managed to choke out in warning.
Father Simon rapped on the ceiling of the carriage with his walking stick, the sharp sound sending slivers into Dori’s brain. But the conveyance lurched obediently to a halt and the priest was seizing her arms, hauling her through the door the boy held open for them.
Theodora vomited on the side of the road, feeling that her insides were being expelled from her as her skirts were drenched with more blood and Simon gripped her arms from behind.
“The potion will wear off soon,” he said from somewhere over her head. “Your bleeding will hopefully slow.” The priest pulled her aright and then reached into his cassock as if searching for something. “You will likely recover, but you must try to be as still as you can manage for the next several hours. It will be a challenge, considering—”
Theodora didn’t wait to see what he would have retrieved, but reached up with clawlike hands to grab at Father Simon’s narrow face. “What have you done with my baby?”
“You must go away now,” he insisted calmly, ignoring her question as he pushed her weak fingers away. “Far away. This carriage shall take you to a ship.”
