Knights of the Black and White

THREE

In the course of the six weeks that followed their initial meeting, Stephen St. Clair met the princess three more times, apparently by sheerest accident on each occasion. Unworldly as he was, it did not occur to him that Alice might be having him watched, tracing his movements so that she might intercept him whenever she so wished, and he would have been genuinely shocked had anyone suggested to him that she might have any prurient interest in him as a man. But even he, unsophisticated and self-effacing as he was, admitted wonder at the frequency with which he saw the princess during that time, particularly because she was seldom far from his mind and was unwittingly causing him a degree of embarrassment. He had taken to dreaming of her and spilling his seed involuntarily in the night, and whereas there was nothing new in that, he had seldom if ever in the past recalled any specific dream triggering such episodes. They had always been unsettling and vaguely troubling, noticeable only from the evidence they left in passing. Now, however, he had sprung awake shuddering with release several times, with the vision of the princess’s face filling his mind, along with the devastatingly tactile but impossible memory of fric-tion, and her flesh burning against his.

The experience, and his inability to prevent it or even to put it from his mind during the day, had begun to cause him grave concern, so that he had determined to seek out a priest and confess to what he believed must be grievous sins. He had not yet done that, because of his training in the Order, but his awareness of the need to do it—to purge himself of the guilt he was feeling—contributed greatly to his reactions to Alice when he found himself face to face with her. The first time, on the morning after his first clearly recalled dream of her, he had not been able to look her in the eye, and his embarrassment would not allow him to speak to her at all. Alice’s amusement at his pitiable shyness was almost completely genuine, but she had cut the interview short, releasing him to his misery.

The second meeting had been much the same, except that this time St. Clair had managed to stammer out a few words in answer to several of Alice’s questions. Once again, however, Alice had decided that it was not yet time for her to press ahead with her designs for the young knight, and so she had concentrated simply but intently upon making him feel at ease in her company, and lulling him into a belief, eventually, that her feigned interest in his brethren and their activities was genuine.

She was more than three years his junior, eighteen years old to his one-and-twenty, but in life experience Alice le Bourcq was decades older than he was. St. Clair was a virgin; his entire life, lived away from women and dominated by the pious and dedicated men among whom he had been reared in damp, dreary England, had left him ill prepared to deal with feminine beauty. Alice, on the other hand, exulted in the power she could exercise over men, seducing whomever she wished to suborn, but never permitting herself to be seduced, finding great pleasure even in that aspect of her control. She was the architect and arranger of her sexual affairs and she had never encountered failure or resistance.

Now, however, with this attractive but infuriatingly awkward monk, she found herself at a loss, unsure of what to do next, or even of what to say to him, for she had seen with her own eyes that, whenever she ventured into conversational territory with which he was unfamiliar, he tended to panic, and his ability to speak dried up completely. She had no way of knowing that he was terrified to speak for fear of saying something that might betray his lustful thoughts, but she knew that he was eager to spend time with her, because the joy that sprang into his face each time he saw her was impossible to misunderstand. And so she persevered in her assault on him, seething inwardly with impatience, while he squirmed with guilt-ridden pleasure.

It was their third meeting that cast the die and pushed Alice beyond amused tolerance and into anger. She had set spies to watch for St. Clair’s return from a long patrol, and she knew from previous observation what his activities would be upon his return to the monks’ dwelling place in the temple stables. He would report to his superiors, after which he would sleep for an entire day, recouping the strength he had depleted through long days of riding beneath the desert sun, and then on the next day, he would walk to the marketplace outside the city walls, by the southwestern gate, where he would spend the morning wandering among the stalls, eating and drinking hugely of the variety of food and beverages available. Later, having sated himself on rich food and the sweet, syrupy drinks and sparkling sherbets of the local vendors, he would make his way back to the Temple Mount, where he would vanish for days on end, doing whatever he and his fellow monks did in the darkness of their quarters, until the time came around again for him to ride out on a new patrol. He was as predictable as sunrise and nightfall, his routine never varying, his route to and from the marketplace the same every time.

SULEIMAN AL KHARIF knew that something was distracting the ferenghi princess, for she was one of his most valued but most critical customers, thoroughly schooled in the finer points of rug making despite her youth, and difficult to please at the best of times. Today she was, he knew, preoccupied by something other than the quality of his merchandise, but he was too old and well schooled in the ways of the marketplace to betray that awareness, and too accustomed to the blessings of Allah’s compassion to take her lack of concentration as other than what it was, a beneficence. The princess had already paid exorbitantly for two rugs that she would not even have considered on any other day, and it was clear to the old merchant, from the way her eyes strayed constantly to the people passing in the street outside his stall, that she had no interest in his goods on this day, but was merely using his premises, waiting for someone to come along. And so, aware that he had already profited well from her preoccupation, he left her and climbed up to the platform that held his proprietorial chair and permitted him to overlook his entire stall. There he stood patiently waiting to see what would develop, allowing her to pretend to be examining his wares while he, standing above her, was able to peer over the hanging racks of his rugs and scan the crowded street outside.

He had no idea whom she might be expecting, but there was not the slightest doubt in Suleiman’s mind that she was waiting for a man. Gazing out at the crowd, therefore, he wondered idly if he might perhaps be able to identify the man she was waiting for before she herself saw the fellow coming, for his vantage point was far superior to hers. And then he saw a towering figure at the far end of the street, head and shoulders taller than everyone around him, and he knew he had no need to wonder further. The approaching man was a gigantic young yellow-haired ferenghi with shoulders the width of the street and blue eyes so bright that Suleiman, even with his ancient eyes, could see them from fifty paces, and as he passed among the crowd, every head turned to watch him go by.

Suleiman watched the princess, aware that she had not yet had the time or opportunity to notice the man approaching. She was an alluring young woman, this Princess of the Franks, and paradoxically she was well regarded among the local people, Suleiman’s people, many of whom could barely stomach the sight of the ferenghis, with their sunburnt faces and arrogant bearing, their heavy chain hauberks and their long swords. Alice, however, had been born among the faithful, and despite her Christianity, she spoke flawless Arabic and conducted herself in public as a Muslim woman should, concealing her face modestly and wearing heavy, shapeless outer garments that caused no offense to anyone. He had heard rumors that among her own she was regarded as something of a disgrace, but he had seen no signs to warrant such a calumny, and neither had anyone he knew. Today she was veiled and wearing Muslim clothing, mostly in a heavy fabric of blue embroidered with green and gold thread, that concealed her from head to foot, save for her eyes, which flashed wide when she finally saw the blond giant coming towards the stall.

One glance told Suleiman that the golden-haired Frank had no idea that the princess was even there. The fellow, who was dressed in sensible desert clothing rather than suffocating ferenghi armor, and carried only a long, straight sword, hanging from a shoulder belt, was drifting along at his own pace, gnawing at a piece of meat and peering about him, his eyes flitting constantly from face to face and stall to stall, missing nothing except the face of the young woman who was now leaning forward eagerly, peering at him through a gap between two of Suleiman’s hanging rugs. Suleiman watched her snap her fingers imperiously, then send her servant running to accost the giant and bring him to her. The tall Frank frowned, then grasped the scabbard of the long sword that hung from his shoulder and followed his summoner, clearly unaware of whom he was going to meet. When he straightened up from stooping to enter Suleiman’s premises and saw the princess waiting for him, however, his surprise and confusion was comical to behold, and Suleiman, who had been on the point of stepping down from his platform, stayed where he was, watching and listening instead.

“Brother Stephen,” the princess greeted him, unveil-ing her face and smiling at him. “This is a pleasant and welcome surprise. You are the last person I would expect to find wandering through the market. I would have said, had anyone asked me, that you would be out in the desert with your fellow knights, patrolling the roads and terrifying bandits.”

The big man was plainly flustered, red faced and ill at ease, and the rug merchant moved marginally closer, straining to hear what he might say.

“My lady Princess,” the fellow muttered, close to stammering with nervousness, “forgive me, I did not … I had no idea …”

“Of what, that I was here?” The princess laughed. “How could you? I did not know myself, until an hour ago, that I would come this way. This is what is known as an accident … a meeting brought about through sheer good fortune.” She hesitated. “I was just about to have some cake and sherbet. Will you share it with me? It would give me great pleasure.”

With an imperious clap of her hands she summoned her servant again and ordered refreshments to be brought for them, then evidently remembered where she was and looked about her for Suleiman, who presented himself immediately, bowing low and smiling in welcome at the giant Frank. When the princess began to ask his permission to eat on his premises, he waved her question away before she could complete it, offering refreshments of his own. Alice would hear none of that, however. Suffice, she said, that he would permit her this privilege; she had brought food and drink with her, intending to eat outdoors later. She was most grateful. Suleiman bowed again and left her with her “unexpected” guest.

For the short time between Suleiman’s departure and the return of Alice’s servants bearing refreshments, St. Clair stood awkwardly, looking at the carpets that lay piled all around him and hung from suspended poles to give the illusion of walls. His eyes shifted everywhere and anywhere, looking at anything except Alice.

“The rugs are beautiful, are they not?” she asked.

He frowned, almost as though he did not know how to respond, and it took Alice some time to realize that, in truth, he did not know how to respond.

“Can it be—? Have you never seen rugs before, Brother Stephen?”

He shook his head, a deep crease between his brows. “No, Lady. I have never seen the like of these before. But they are beautiful. What are they? What is their purpose?”

“Purpose?” She laughed, delighted by his apparent lack of sophistication. “They have no purpose, Brother Stephen, they simply are. They are floor coverings, to be walked upon. Surely you have rugs in Christendom? Everyone has rugs.”

He swung suddenly to face her, and spoke through clenched teeth, his taut jaw muscles making him look angry, although she knew he was not. “Where I came from, our floors are dirt, Lady, and we spread dried rushes over them to soak up spillage and mud. It rains in England, Princess, and the days are cold and damp and miserable most of the time. Little summer and less sunshine. Items such as these”—he waved a hand at the rugs surrounding them—“if we had anything resembling them, we would hang on walls, to keep out drafts. We do it with tapestries, but our tapestries are stiff and loveless things. We have nothing as rich and beautiful as these, with all these colors and soft, rich textures. It would be sinful to throw such beauty on a packed dirt floor, to be trodden into mud by mailed feet and be shit upon by dogs.”

He paused, then cleared his throat before continuing. “Of course, I have seen that such things are very different in this country. Everything is warmer. Cleaner. Spacious and airy. That’s the heat. When it’s not wet and cold all the time, you can do things differently. But in our quarters, in the stables, our floors are stone and we still have rushes on them, although we call it straw—” He broke off, aware that he was looking directly at her and she was returning his gaze with a wide smile on her lips. She waited, and then, when she saw he would say no more, she laughed aloud.

“You can speak! That is the most I have heard you say since I first met you, Brother Stephen. Were you aware of that?”

He looked troubled. “I am now. And I am Brother Stephen. I should not be here.”

“Oh, please, please stay and share some food with me. See, here it comes now.”

The young knight stood uncertainly, but in response to Alice’s waving hand, he finally sank slowly into one of the three chairs Suleiman provided for his clients, and thereafter, for the space of almost an hour, the princess applied herself conscientiously to putting him at his ease and undermining his defenses against her femininity. She fed him honey cakes that her servants had brought especially for her, made with crushed almonds and heavily impregnated with the opiate known as hashish, of which she had an ample and regular supply, delivered by sources about which her father would have been gravely concerned had he known of them.

What Alice had no way of knowing about that day, however, was the extreme fragility of St. Clair’s self-confidence, brought about by the simple fact that he had become obsessed with everything about her and knew very well that his attraction to her was unconscionable. He had always been shy and awkward around her, hesitant and tongue-tied and unsure of himself since their first meeting, and Alice had quickly come to accept that as normal in him, adding to his charm—the bashful boy in the giant body of a hero. But because she had never seen any other aspect of his character, she was unable to imagine how he might behave when she was not there to influence him and his conduct, and she was, of course, incapable of seeing beyond the exterior he presented to her. There was nothing in his demeanor to indicate to her that he spent much of his life nowadays dreaming of her, awake and asleep, and there was even less evidence that he was racked by guilt because of that, and so Alice moved ahead confidently, unaware of how close her prey was to despair. In her efforts to put him at his ease, she deliberately avoided any attempts to be seductive or alluring, opting instead to treat him as she believed a sister might, and trying to be completely natural in all she did around him. It was a difficult thing for her to do, verging in fact on the impossible.

St. Clair, looking at her as she moved with such apparent lack of artifice, saw far more than she was showing him: in his imagination he saw the way her clothing clung to her beneath the heavy fabric of her shapeless outer garment, shaping the hills and hollows of her form; he saw the way she subsided into her chair, lounging back into it, and in his mind her breasts were thrust into prominence and her rounded thighs, so clearly parted beneath the flimsy stuff of her clothing, became the most all-consuming sight in the universe, and he writhed mentally, believing that his lust for her was an abomination and a crime against a spotless, innocent young woman.

Had Alice even suspected any of what was in his mind, she would have been exultant, and would have shown her feelings far more aggressively, but instead she continued as she had begun, behaving as though there was no such thing as sexuality in her nature, avoiding any of the overtly seductive gestures and smiles that were so much a part of her normal behavior. Believing herself modestly shielded by the weight and thickness of her brocade robe, she fed the fires of the young knight’s overheated imagination with a series of uninhibited body movements, of which she was genuinely unaware, that aroused him beyond his power to prevent a sudden crisis. He leapt to his feet, his face pale as death, and fled her presence.

Afterwards, when she had time to think about it calmly, Alice had still been unable to understand what had triggered his astonishing behavior. Her fury had scarcely abated in the time that had since passed. No man, no one, had ever insulted her so grievously, and Alice was determined to have vengeance.

That he was a monk and bound by a vow of chastity meant nothing to her, because she had had many lovers with the same commitment, all of them more highly placed than he, and their vows had never kept them from her bed. Alice believed herself too desirable to be resisted over anything as insubstantial as a simple vow. And thus she went searching for other, more pragmatic reasons for the monk’s behavior, beginning with the assumption that he already had a lover who must, by definition, be highly placed and well known, since there were so few Christian women in Jerusalem. Not even Alice would have believed that a devout Christian monk, and most particularly a rigidly humorless one, would have a sexual relationship with a Muslim woman. She had had him spied on and followed before, keeping track of his movements between patrols, but that had been only during daylight hours, since at that time she had had no suspicions that he might be conducting an amatory liaison with anyone. Now she set her spies to watching him night and day.

A full month later, having received the third of the regular ten-day reports of her chief spy in this matter, she was forced to accept, with great reluctance, that Brother Stephen was not involved with any woman, Christian or Muslim. Her people had made sure that he went nowhere without their being in close attendance. They had noted every person he spoke to and every purchase that he made in the markets. Two of them had even followed him into the desert when he went out on patrol, and they had seen nothing that aroused their suspicions in any way.

That acknowledgment left Alice then with the notion that he might be homosexual; it might have been sexual revulsion that drove him to run away from her. She had trouble visualizing that, let alone understanding it, but the possibility at least soothed her bruised sensibilities.

Once again, however, after a month of watching and listening, her spies could provide her with nothing to substantiate her suspicions. His brother monks were St. Clair’s only close companions, and he was by far the youngest of them all. They all disappeared inside the stables every night, to sleep, and they were up and about, praying at the oddest hours of the day and night, their entire routine dictated by the Rule of Saint Benedict that they followed. But there was nothing anyone could see, even with the best will in the world, that suggested that any of the monks indulged in sexual activities of any kind.

Alice remained angry and unforgiving, even after two clear months, but she was still infuriatingly incapable of putting the young monk knight out of her mind or her lustful fantasies, imagining on several occasions, when entertaining an ineffectual or unsatisfying lover, that it was Stephen St. Clair straining above her, ravishing her brutally.