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“That would be quite a feat.”
“Quite.”
“An impossible one.”
“Almost,” he said softly.
Her gaze bored into him. “Are you saying you have such a means? The means to turn the French barons to the English king?”
He shook his head. “I’ve the means to turn the English ones to your French king.”
She sat up straighter. “Your dagger has this power?”
“It is not mine,” he said, his voice hard.
“How could a dagger turn the king’s nobles against him?
“When it implicates him in a royal murder.”
She inhaled sharply. “Show me.”
He hesitated, then reached to his side—the dagger was never far from him—and grabbed the sword belt, dragged it onto his chest, leather straps clicking softly as sheath and belt fell against each other. He unsheathed the beautiful, terrible dagger.
“’Tis a Nizari blade,” he told her as she reached for it. “The blade of an Assassin.”
“Assassins,” she whisper-echoed, her brow furrowed in delicate horror, then her fingertip touched the magnificent gem embedded in its hilt. “And this is the ruby?”
“Aye. Richard’s ruby.”
She looked up slowly. “Richard…?”
“The Lionheart. King of England.”
“I knew it,” she said on an exhale. “You were on crusade, with the king.” She looked at it, silent questions furrowing her brow. The one that finally emerged honed his respect for her mind to a sharper edge. “What is the gemstone of the king of England doing in an Assassin’s blade?”
“Well, now, Maggie, that is precisely what you’re supposed to ask. ‘How is the King of England bound up with the Assassins?’ They had it made special, using Richard’s own ruby, to mark it. To implicate him. ’Twas a warning, and a threat. More so the words inscribed on the blade.” He took it, twisted it toward the low firelight, and pointed at the shiny groove that ran down its center, giving the blade its perfect balance. “Here, etched along the blood gutter.”
He watched her slim finger trail over the delicate etchings inlaid in the steel and could not help but shudder.
“The writing is so small, it is like filigree,” she murmured, lifting the blade close up in front of her eyes to peer at it. “What does it say?”
“’Tis a rune.”
“A rune?”
“Of sorts. In Arabic.” He reached out and flipped the blade over, pointed to the other side. “And French. Can you read it?”
Aloud, softly, she recited the faint tracings. “True kings pay in money/ All others pay in blood/ Jerusalem was bought with Conrad's blood/ By England's Coeur de Lion.” Her gaze lifted slowly. “What does it mean?”
“What do you think it means?”
“That the throne of Jerusalem was ‘bought’ by the king of England. That Richard the Lionheart paid to have,” she swallowed, “Conrad murdered.”
“Do you know who Conrad was?”
She stared at the dagger. “One of the leaders of the crusades…married to the queen of Jerusalem. He was to be crowned king of the Holy City until…”
“Until?”
