Susan Shwartz - Cross and Crescent by Susan Shwartz

Author:Susan Shwartz [Shwartz, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-04-01T03:00:00+00:00

24

No wine filled the chalice that Theodoulos rescued the night Bohemond seized Antioch. Any wine the army had was preserved for the sick. Some of the knights had taken to bleeding their horses for nourishment, a trick Theo had seen on the steppes, but which surprised him in the Franks: he certainly would not profane the cup! He gazed into it as if it held wine and as if he, like Asherah or Binah, could divine the future or other places on the trembling surface of the wine.

His quarters, a room in a decent house nowhere near the sites that Bohemond had marked for burning, were shadowy, and he thought he saw shadows stir. Or perhaps it was only that he had so hoped for relief from the Emperor—and from his foster father. A letter from Leo had reached him.

“Forgive me,” was practically its entire burden. The Emperor decrees, but my father suffers for it, Theodoulos thought, with a resentment that was no longer borrowed solely from the Franks he lived among.

“He fights alongside us,” Sir Rainault had said. “My lord Count made him a knight. He may be a Greek, but he’s ours.”

It was good that he was somebody's—as long as he was alive. He was a man and a fighter now. It was right that Leo protect his household; Theodoulos, as a man and now a knight, would protect himself and the men of his new fellowship.

The question remained: what should he do with this chalice?

Footsteps pounded into the hallway, and Theodoulos thrust the chalice into his clothing.

“If my lord Count finds you sulking, he’ll burn this tent down too, you know?” Rainault greeted him.

“I'm not due on the walls,” Theodoulos replied. “In fact, my lord sent me away. Ever since I helped clean out the cathedral, he’s been surprisingly easy on me.”

Rainault grimaced. “Well, don’t go turning priest on us. We need your wits.”

Theodoulos made himself smile half guiltily. “I thought I might hunt up the Legate,” he said.

“Aha! And see if His Eminence of Le Puy has received letters, perhaps from a pretty niece, is that it, brother?” Rainault clapped him on the shoulder.

Do you really think Adela’s pretty? lurked at the tip of Theodoulos’s tongue. He had never considered Adela’s beauty as a quality apart from Adela herself. She was a lady—his lady, as Rainault thought—and therefore above common gossip. Theo would no more have spoken about Asherah or his sisters.

“Won’t that be a noble contest? Who shall wed you and Adela, Adhémar by the true rite, or the Patriarch with your Greekish ritual?”

Theodoulos shook his head. The June sun had burned him dark, but he knew he flushed. “Weddings? We’ll be lucky to live past sundown,” he said. “And I am a landless man.”

“Not for long,” Sir Rainault laughed. “The Count will fill your pouch. To Adhémar, then, Sir Bridegroom!”

To his surprise, Theodoulos found himself laughing.

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