Read Online Alamut by Judith Tarr - Free Book Online

to stop her. She took very little: only a single bundle and her chestnut mare, and mute Dura who never questioned her mistress’ will. Ranulf was gone. He had women in the city, Joanna knew that. No doubt one of them was accepting with pleasure what Joanna had spurned.
    Joanna wished her joy of it.
    For Joanna there would be no more of it. Her refuge was waiting, and it welcomed her with unfeigned gladness, even in mourning. Her chamber was as she had left it, Cook had dainties for her, and Godefroi the house-steward gave her the word she hoped for. “Tomorrow,” he said, “they come.”
    She did not try to think beyond the moment. She prayed for Gereint’s soul, and then she wept for him, cleanly, in her own narrow bed. Then, cleansed, she slept.
    oOo
    She was ready when they came. She could do little for lank hair or shadowed eyes, but what she could do, she had done. Her gown was fresh; its somber blue suited her not too badly. She had found that she could eat, and drink a little wine. She was still sipping it as she sat on the roof, leaning on its ledge, shaded by the lemon tree that grew in a great basin in the angle of the wall. The street below was its narrow, quiet self. When she looked up she could see the great grey dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
    They came from the other way, from the Tower of David. Her eyes leaped to their head: the small round figure on the grey horse. There was a young man just behind her: Thibaut, it had to be. He had grown. He had not lost his habit of riding with his hand on his hip, which he thought elegant. It suited him better now that he was almost old enough to carry it off.
    There they all were, the servants, the soldiers, dour Brychant in his old scale armor that he had taken from a Saracen. And —
    There was a knight in black on a blood-bay horse, and he was not Gereint. He could not be. That long lean body, so light in the saddle; that sharp hawk-face; that turn of the head as Gereint said something — it was not a dead man riding.
    And if it was not, there was only one thing it could be.
    Her fingers clamped on the balustrade. Grimly she pried them free. Her heart was beating hard.
    He was not so like his kinsman as he came closer. A family resemblance, that was all. He was certainly much prettier; and yet she was disappointed. Handsome, yes. But where was the beauty that cut like a sword?
    He looked up, and she gasped. Oh, indeed, a sword: straight to the heart.
    oOo
    Her mother asked no questions. Thibaut did, but only with his eyes. Prince Aidan, who could not have known that there was anything to ask, was courtesy purely. Warm fingers lifting her cold ones; the brush of a courtly kiss. She did not think that anyone saw how she trembled.
    His voice was deeper than she had expected, yet clearer, its western lilt stronger even than Gereint’s had been. It made her think of far green places, and of water falling.
    It was witchery. She knew it, and she did not care. Thibaut was far gone in it, she could see. Margaret seemed impervious, but Margaret was Margaret. She wore her widowhood as she did all else, with quiet competence.
    With greetings disposed of, Thibaut took the guest in hand. Joanna stayed with Margaret, which meant a detailed inspection of house and servants, and the overseeing of the baggage, and the disposal of a caller or two. Joanna fell into her old place a step or two behind her mother, like a young wolfhound in the wake of a small, rotund, and very busy lapdog.
    But she was not the child she had been. She had to sit down, rather abruptly, in the middle of her mother’s stillroom.
    Margaret did not seem to hurry, but she was there very quickly, kneeling on the floor beside Joanna. Her hand was cool on Joanna’s brow; her arm was firm. She took no notice of the flutter of servants, except to dismiss them. “Tell me,” she said.
    Joanna shook her head hard. “You have grief enough.”
    â€œLet me