Black Lion’s Bride (Warrior Trilogy #2)

Chapter 25

“You're awake,” Sebastian said when he opened his eyes a few hours later.

Her head on the bolster next to his, Zahirah nodded, giving him a small smile. She had climbed back into bed with him some time ago, but she had not slept, and now that it was dawn, she mourned the night's swift passing. Sebastian's strong legs were wound around hers; he slowly flexed his knees, pulling her toward him until her hips were flush against his. He was hard beneath the coverlet, and her body responded to that knowledge with a sudden quickening in her veins. But she shied away from wanting him now, forcing herself to deny the longing that would keep her there with him for as long as he would have her.

“My morning prayers,” she said feebly, “I cannot neglect them.” She pressed her fingers against his bare chest in tender resistance, but instead found herself closing her eyes at the contact, memorizing the feel of his heart thudding against her palm.

The feel of him, so alive and warm beside her, seared her now, scorching the resolve she was fighting so hard to keep. Before it crumbled any further into ash, Zahirah rolled away from him and swung her legs over the side of the bed. With a groan and a shifting of the mattress behind her, Sebastian did likewise. While Zahirah donned a morning gown, he padded barefoot to the door and summoned a servant to bring them breakfast.

Meekly, her limbs and heart lethargic, Zahirah went to the washbasin and performed her daily ablutions, then unrolled her prayer mat on the floor. She knelt on the woven square of cotton canvas and began the ritual of her praises for Allah. It was a farce today, little more than a performance of the motions, for she could not concentrate on the words. She rushed through the last of her prayers, finishing just as a knock sounded on the door.

“Maimoun is quick today,” Sebastian said when her head snapped up in startlement. He shrugged into a long tunic and went to admit the servant entry.

But it was not Maimoun come to bring them their meal. It was Logan. He was outfitted in chain mail, his helm tucked under his arm, his sheathed broadsword slung low on his hips. “Where are you off to so early this morning?” Sebastian asked, stepping aside for the other man to enter.

“Not just me, my friend, but you as well. 'Twas the king's order not a moment ago.”

Zahirah swallowed hard. God help her, her betrayal had begun already.

She got to her feet as Logan came inside and gave her a polite nod of greeting. “The king has obtained information recently about Saladin's movements,” he told Sebastian. “According to Templar spies, the sultan has been poisoning area wells in an effort to impinge our march on Jerusalem. Lionheart has assembled a scouting party to ride out and assess the situation for himself.”

“What's this about?” Sebastian asked, a dubious edge to his voice as he tugged on his braies and hose, then fastened the points and ties. “He doesn't trust the information he's received?”

“I couldna say, my friend. 'Tis my understanding that the king is not well today and still abed in his chambers; these orders came from one of his lieutenants.” Logan slanted him a wry look. “All I know is what I've been told. The king wants reports, and he wants you and I to head up the scout. We're to leave without delay.”

“Were you told how far we are to scout for these reports?”

Logan nodded. “North, toward Jaffa. ”

“God's blood,” Sebastian swore. “That's a day, easily.”

Logan grunted, looking no more enthused with the prospect than Sebastian. In the corridor, Maimoun arrived with a tray of dates and oranges and a loaf of bread. Before the servant could usher in the food, the big knight grabbed a handful of dates and popped one in his mouth. “I've had no time to eat yet,” he said, talking around the chunk of succulent fruit.

Sebastian retrieved his gambeson from a T-shaped rack beside the bed and shrugged into the padded leather vest. Draped beneath where the gambeson had been on the stand was his shirt of steel armor links; he gathered it up and slung the tunic's jingling bulk over his arm. “Regrettably, duty calls, my lady,” he said to Zahirah. He came over to where she stood and cupped her cheek in his palm. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

Too unsettled to speak, Zahirah gave him a shaky nod. It was all happening so fast. Now that he was going, she wanted to reach out and hold him back, to plead with him to stay. She wanted to blurt out the truth of what she was hiding from him, pray that he would forgive her, and hope that somehow, together, they could puzzle a way out of this coil of lies and destruction. But her father's threat echoed roundly in her ears, and, so, instead, she kept her tongue and willed her hands to stay at her sides.

Sebastian leaned forward to place a quick kiss of good-bye on her lips, and she accepted this last gift of affection, feeling as treacherous as a snake as she watched him turn and grab his sword belt then stride out of the chamber with Logan.

~ ~ ~

In the large courtyard outside the palace, four squires were already saddling and provisioning the mounts that Sebastian, Logan, and two other men would be taking on their scouting errand for the king. One of the lads saw the officers approach and rushed around to assist Sebastian into his chain mail. As the heavy armor shirt settled onto his shoulders, a movement near the palace caught his eye. It was the king.

Robed in a hooded white caftan, Lionheart stood on the balcony of his second-floor chamber, idly observing the assembly of the riding party. Behind him, the silken curtains that framed the portal ruffled in the soft breath of the morning. The king watched for a moment, still as a hawk. He met Sebastian's gaze across the space of the yard, by accident, it seemed. He stood there, simply staring, then he turned away and headed back inside.

“Let's go,” Sebastian ordered, jerking his head back toward the squires as they strapped on the last of the packs and moved aside.

He took his destrier's reins in hand and swung up into the saddle. Logan and the other two knights followed, bringing their mounts around to join him. With a queer feeling of suspicion beginning to gnaw at him, Sebastian gave his steed a kick of his heels and the scouting party headed out for Jaffa.

~ ~ ~

Zahirah remained behind the closed door of Sebastian's chamber for the rest of the morning, receiving no one. Maimoun had brought more food at midday but she refused it, sending the servant away without admitting him entry. He obeyed and withdrew, unquestioning her request that she not be disturbed unless she called. Which, of course, she would not.

Today she would fast; she had only room for prayer and reflection, for reconnection with her faith and her clan, and her obligations within them. Devoting herself to that goal, she bathed and dressed and braided her hair, then left Sebastian's empty apartments for the solitude of her own.

But it was more than mere solitude that drew her to the room she had occupied upon her arrival at the palace some weeks ago. With cool-headed purpose, she went at once to the mattress of her small bed and reached far beneath it, her fingers sliding and groping for purchase along the flat of the bed frame. It was there, where she had left it: the dagger that had been forged and fashioned especially for this night. Zahirah curled her hand around the knife's leather sheath and brought it out of hiding.

The weapon was heavier than she recalled. The slender blade whispered softly as she drew it from the sleeve, its razor edge glinting deadly silver in her palms. She lifted the dagger to her lips and bowed her head to kiss it, murmuring a prayer that she be granted the strength and skill to deliver it as He willed. She knelt on the floor, praying for clarity and focus, for the courage to face these next few hours without emotion, and to accept whatever should come after them.

It sustained for a while, that steely marshaling of her directives, her determined adherence to the code of her clan. But the space around her was alive with memories of her time with Sebastian—moments they had shared, places where they had loved—vivid memories that edged their way into her meditations like a tender sapling slowly cleaving the granite core of a stone. She would never forget him. May Allah forgive her, but she would never stop loving him.

Before the room's many memories and thoughts of her days there with Sebastian could form a wider fissure in her resolve, Zahirah returned her dagger to its sheath and hid it beneath her pantalets, then she quit the small chamber and headed for the roof terrace to put herself closer to God, where she would use the remaining few hours to prepare and wait until the time to act drew near.