The Dagger and the Cross by Judith Tarr Page A

pulse that was Gwydion’s. Sleep came with it, sweet and deep.
    o0o
    Ysabel, looking for mischief in the hour before sunup, found
Aimery instead. He was full of himself as usual, ordering the bath-servants
about because, as he put it, “His majesty wants to bathe. Again. All over.”
    “Prince Aidan bathes every day,” Ysabel said, unimpressed. “Don’t
you do that in Tripoli?”
    “We live like Christians in Tripoli,” said Aimery haughtily.
    “In filth?”
    He snarled and tried to push past her. She was solider than
she looked; he could not move her.
    He stopped, furious. “Will you get over? His majesty is
waiting.”
    “His majesty is so happy to be with his brother, he’s not
noticing how long anything takes.”
    “How do you know?”
    Ysabel was not about to tell him. “I’ll get over if you
promise to take me riding after.”
    “I can’t take you riding. I have to wait on his majesty.”
    “What if his majesty wants to go?”
    “Then I’ll go with him. And you,” said Aimery with enormous
satisfaction, “will stay home with the rest of the babies.”
    Her eyes narrowed. She kept her voice quiet. She was proud
to hear how quiet it was. “I’m not a baby.”
    “You’re a girl,” he said.
    “Is that what they teach you in Tripoli?”
    “In Tripoli,” he said, “women know their place.”
    Either he was an idiot, or he had been away too long. She
thought that maybe it was both. She smiled at him with poisonous sweetness. “Prince
Aidan always lets me ride with him. He says I ride better than any boy.”
    Aimery went stiff. He was even more horrified than she had
hoped.
    She laughed and danced out of his way. He almost ran away
from her.
    o0o
    He fetched up against a wall, no matter which wall it was,
and drove his fist at it. The pain was sharp, and welcome.
    She always knew exactly what to say. Exactly where to drive
the knife. Exactly where to twist it.
    He was the oldest. The heir. The one who mattered most. And
it was always Ysabel they talked about, Ysabel they thought of, Ysabel they
fretted over. She was the one they noticed. She was their favorite.
    He would give his heart’s blood for a moment of the prince’s
attention. And did he ever get it? For a vanishing instant, maybe. Then Ysabel
would come, and Aimery would be forgotten. He was only another of the tribe.
She was the one Aidan loved.
    He cooled his burning cheek against the wall. His hand
throbbed. “I hate her,” he said.
    It sounded silly, said aloud. Of course you don’t hate your
sister, his mother would say, impatient as she always was with foolishness. You’re
jealous, that’s all. Someone’s always jealous in a family. That’s the way the
devil tempts us.
    Maybe he hated his mother, too. Maybe he hated everybody.
    His mood was beautifully black. He was almost sad that it
had to lighten. He had duties, after all, and a king to wait on. That much,
even Ysabel could not take away from him.
    o0o
    It was cool in the garden, almost cold, with the sun barely
risen to warm it. Elen paused under a flowering tree. She would have to ask
someone what it was. Its scent was sweet and potent, more purely alien than
anything she had yet known: truly, at last, Outremer. She broke off a spray and
tucked it in her hair. Her veil had slipped to her shoulders; she left it
there. The sun lay on her like a warm hand.
    The garden was larger than it looked, with paths and hedges
and bowers, and a fountain playing where roses bloomed. Sometimes she could not
even see the house, so clever were the contrivances of paths and hedges.
    She saw the man long before he saw her. A gardener, she
supposed, clearing weeds from a fishpond. He wore a turban, which made him a
Saracen; he was not as small as most of them were, though he was dark enough.
His sleeves were rolled high, baring long strong arms the color of bronze. He
swept up a handful of weed and tossed it toward a goat which waited as if
expectant. The beast caught it neatly; he laughed