Читать книгу Crusader's Lady - Lynna Banning, Lynna Banning - Страница 17

It took seven buckets of steaming water to fill the wooden tub. The last servant, panting from his exertions, set a bowl of soap, a cloth and a towel on the floor next to the tub, and by the time the door closed after him, the knight was shrugging off his tunic.

‘Open the window. I smell like no rose.’

‘Oh, no, lord, you smell just as you should!’ The words spattered out of Soraya’s mouth like sand blown in a wind-storm. ‘You need not bathe at all. You smell…just like a rose. A musky one, like the pink rose my uncle Khalil trained over an—’

‘Enough!’ he roared. He began stripping his legs free of the mail stockings. Soraya looked everywhere but at him, the fireplace set deep in the thick stone wall where lazy flames threw out a flickering light; the simple rope chair upon which he draped his discarded garments.

‘Don’t stand goggling, boy. Give me a hand with this mail and my hauberk.’

Soraya stepped forward. Don’t think. Just do as you must. Three hard tugs and the mail shirt rolled off his torso with a soft crunch. Then she untied the laces of the padded hauberk underneath.

‘The window,’ he reminded, his voice tight.

She swung the shutters as wide as they would go, gulped in the soft, scented night air. Below her, the moat gurgled as if in warning.

She was his servant, but she could not look at him. When she finally gathered her courage and turned back to the knight, he stood before her completely naked. She caught her hand to her mouth.

His body was beautiful, his chest hard-muscled, his waist narrow. His entire form looked lean and hard, as if chiseled out of stone. In spite of herself, her gaze drifted lower, to his battle-scarred thighs. And his…

Oh, my. Her breath whistled in through her teeth. That, too, was handsomely formed.

She looked away. ‘My uncle Khalil has a fine house,’ she stuttered. ‘In Damascus. With fine carpets and hammered silver chests, and the linen always spotless. And—’

‘What on earth are you chattering about?’

‘I was speaking of my uncle’s house,’ she said quickly. She knew she was talking nonsense to a knight who cared nothing about the house in Damascus, but it was all she could think of to distract herself. ‘I had a private bathing pool in my quarters. Heated. I bathed ev—’

‘You had your own quarters, did you?’ he said, his voice sharp. ‘A servant? Huh! You are a skillful liar, boy, but you do not fool me.’

He made a half turn away from her and lifted one bare foot into the tub. She forced her gaze to the floor, inspected the bowl of soap, the linen towel. She heard a splash and a groan of satisfaction, and she could not resist raising her head.

He was leaning back against the edge of the tub, eyes closed, a tired smile on his lips. ‘Start at my neck,’ he said in a drowsy voice.

Soraya went perfectly still. He wanted her to…touch him? Touch the naked flesh of a man?

‘Soray?’ came the grumbly voice. ‘Make haste, lad.’

She knelt quickly beside the tub, reached for the cloth and lifted the bowl of soap. It was runny and smelled of sheep fat. She looked at his chest, at the bulges of muscle, the sprinkling of black hairs around his flat, brown nipples, his bare forearms resting on the tub edge. A peculiar feeling lodged deep in her belly.

‘One moment, lord,’ she murmured. She could not sully his wondrous body with soap such as this. She set the wooden bowl down. Yanking open the leather pouch she carried under her tunic, she poured in half a palmful of aromatic rosemary leaves, then plunged her hand in the mess and squashed the herbs into it. When it smelled fresh and pungent instead of rancid, she scooped up a glob with two fingers and dribbled it onto his bare skin.

‘Ah, smells good,’ he said.

‘So will you within the hour,’ she said without thinking.

‘So I do stink, do I?’ He laughed softly. ‘Small wonder. One Christian legion could flatten an entire army of Saracens just from the stench of our bodies.’

He did not stink. He smelled of sweat and leather, and his breath, when he blew it out, smelled of wine. But he did not stink.

He smelled like a man.

Marc did not open his eyes when the soap drizzled onto his chest. It smelled different, spicy and pleasant. He smiled to himself and began to let his body take its ease. He had managed to get King Richard safely to Cyprus. Also, after months of drinking sour ale, he was tasting good wine. And the soothing attentions of Soray, scrubbing gently at a month’s caked filth, were calming.

He opened his lids. ‘War is a dirty business. A warrior fights not only the enemy, but heat, desert sand, exhaustion, thirst, even hunger, while kings and princes negotiate behind each other’s backs and make secret bargains. Grasping power-seekers, the lot of them.’

‘Saladin is reported to be honest,’ the boy ventured. ‘And chivalrous.’

Marc huffed. ‘Saladin wants to hold Jerusalem at any cost. He is like a patient desert ant—truce or no, he will find a way, through force or chicanery. Or both.’

His servant uttered not one word. The rough cloth traveled back and forth across his chest, and when he leaned forward, it slid up and down his back from neck to tailbone. The lad might be unfamiliar with the ways of knights and armies, but he understood something about bathing. Marc turned one ear toward his bent knee to allow the boy to scrub his scalp and again he closed his eyes.

He was more tired than he had thought. So tired his brain was muddling things together, the scented soap, the sweet, warm air flowing in through the open casement, the feel of a hand other than his own giving attention to his body. It was soothing. Almost caressing.

He sat upright with a groan.

‘What is wrong, lord?’

‘Nothing,’ he grated. ‘Everything. I have been months without a woman.’

The washcloth halted and Soray sat back suddenly.

‘A woman?’

‘Aye. You are too young to know of such things.’

A look passed over his servant’s white face. ‘I have heard that other warriors, Christians, take Saracen women.’

‘Aye. They say such women are soft-skinned and perfumed. And skilled in dancing. And other things.’

‘And are they?’ came a small voice.

‘I would not know, lad. I have never taken one.’

‘Never?’

Marc ignored the question. Now he felt the sharp prick of desire, and it brought another groan from his throat. ‘Come, boy. Hurry it up so the water will still be warm for you.’

The boy’s breath sucked in and again the gliding cloth halted on his shoulder. ‘For me!’

‘You said you bathed, did you not? Or is it just hands and face you wash?’

Marc drew the washing linen out of the boy’s hand and scrubbed his belly and his privates, then his legs and feet. Soray hunched beside the tub, his eyes on the floor.

Marc dunked his head into the tub and came up shaking off the water like a hound. He stood up, turned toward the boy and lifted his arms. Soray stared at the rivulets of water dripping from his hair onto his chest, but the lad did not move.

‘Well, towel me off,’ he barked.

The servant bit his lower lip and began mopping at Marc’s wet skin, careful to touch no lower than Marc’s waist. God, the lad was an innocent.

An irrational feeling of protectiveness washed over him. He must guard the lad from predators until he was old enough to…

Absently he took the linen towel from Soray’s hand and dried his torso, a scar making him think suddenly of his older brother.

‘Henry, my brother…’

Unaware he had spoken aloud, he blinked when Soray softly inquired, ‘What about your brother, lord?’

‘We are very close. We were fostered together, with my father’s older brother in France. Henry won his spurs when he was eighteen, and then he took time to tutor me in the tilt yard. I still bear this scar on my chest from a badly deflected blow. There was lots of blood and Henry laid me down on the grass and wept.’

‘You love your brother,’ Soray said quietly.

‘That I do. I pray nightly that I will see him once again soon, God willing.’

The lad moved away and stood with one hand on the door bar. ‘Shall I fetch a page to empty the tub?’

‘What? No, do not. Use the water, lad. Strip and soak yourself.’

Soraya’s heart skipped once and stumbled to a stop.

Strip herself? ‘I thank you, lord, but… I…’

The knight turned toward the huge curtained bed, and Soraya swore he was hiding a smile. She was dirty and smelly, but… She glanced down at the inviting bathwater. Oh, to soak the filth off her body.

But she dared not. Unless…

She studied the blue damask curtains tied back with a thick red cord, then let her gaze drift to Marc, who was nearing the bed.

‘I wish you a peaceful rest, lord.’ She waited, heard the whisper of the straw mattress as it took his weight.

‘Peaceful it will not be until our friend the holy man is safe in his…monastery.’

Soraya did not reply. Instead, she stood motionless, listening to the knight’s gradually slowing breaths. When air gusted out of his open mouth with a hoarse after-sound, she sneaked a final look at him.

He lay spread-eagled on the fur coverlet, arms flung outward, his mouth sagging open. Asleep, she prayed. She tiptoed forward.

‘Lord?’ she whispered.

No answer, only a grunt and more steady breathing.

She tore off her leather sandals, her tunic, her belt with the precious pouch of herbs and her bag of gold coins, well wrapped in silk to prevent their clinking. Last she stepped out of her wide trousers and unbound the headpiece and the strip of linen confining her breasts.

Keeping her back to the sleeping knight, she noiselessly slid first one leg, then the other, into the lukewarm water. She dropped to her knees, tipped her head under the surface and soaped her thick curls. Every few moments she craned her neck to watch the figure on the bed.

Yes, he slept on. She took her time sponging her body, then rose, stepped silently out of the tub and wrapped herself in the still-damp towel. Just as she moved toward the pile of garments she’d left on the floor, someone began pounding on the chamber door.

‘De Valery, wake up! Open the door!’

God save her, it was the holy man with the voice of thunder. She froze in the center of the room, afraid to utter a sound, afraid to move lest the knight wake and notice her. She hugged the linen towel tighter around her body and flinched as the pounding boomed again.

‘De Valery, I bring news!’

The knight on the bed groaned and flung one arm over his face. ‘In the morning,’ he muttered. ‘Go away.’

‘Open this door at once!’

De Valery rolled heavily toward the edge of the bed and raised his torso up on one elbow. Soraya spun away, putting her back to him. Out of the corner of her eye she watched him lurch off the bed and stagger, still half-asleep, toward the chamber door.

Her heart leaped. Her tunic and trousers and the strip of linen she used to bind her breasts lay directly in his path. Trembling with fear, she waited.

The groggy knight stepped over the pile of clothes and slid back the bolt. Just as the door scraped open, Soraya clutched the towel to her bosom, darted behind de Valery to snatch up her clothes and leaped onto the bed.

Huddling in the center, wrapped in the towel, she waited until the holy man pushed through the doorway, then hurriedly yanked one of the bed curtains closed. The damask hanging zinged along the wooden rod, screening her from view.

De Valery’s sleep-muzzy voice spoke. ‘What news?’ he demanded.

‘Something has happened.’ The monk was breathing so heavily Soraya guessed he had climbed the three floors at a run. Frantically she wound the linen strip around her upper body, and was just tugging her tunic over her head when she heard the holy man stride across the room.

‘Have you some wine?’

‘No.’

‘Well, get some, man,’ the monk shouted. ‘We must talk.’

‘Soray,’ the knight ordered. ‘Go down to the kitchen. Ask them to send up food and wine.’

She scrambled into her trousers, slid off the far side of the bed and scooped up her sandals. Then she ducked past the holy man and sped down the hall to the stairway.

On the way back up from the kitchen she heard men’s voices drifting along the corridor and she hid in a garderobe to listen.

‘He would sell it?’ one man grated. ‘To the Templars? But where would we get such a sum for the purchase?’

‘Look in your vault, Giles. More than enough gold is hidden there.’

‘Damn the man!’

‘The English are not patient, Giles. We must pay.’

Soraya curled her toes but made no sound. As soon as the voices faded, she fled.

When she returned to the chamber, the bathtub was gone and a flagon of wine, a round loaf of bread, a saucer of greenish olive oil and some cheese sat on the crude wooden table against one wall. De Valery was half-dressed in a long, loose shirt, apparently one he found in the wooden chest at the foot of the bed, the lid of which now stood open. The holy man paced back and forth in front of the casement.

‘Do not argue, de Valery. It is done.’

Soraya edged around the perimeter of the shadowy room, staying out of the holy man’s path, until she reached the bed. In one bound she sprang behind the still-drawn curtain.

‘It will be dangerous,’ the knight snapped. He slammed his wine cup onto the table, and Soraya winced.

‘It is already dangerous,’ the monk shouted. ‘We leave before lauds. Get some sleep.’