Part VIII - The Road to Awe and Wonder

[twasadark]

 

-*-

The news was ill. The Muslim rulers in charge of Jaffa tolerated the Christian community but discouraged them from traveling to Jerusalem on account of the vicious bandits lining the roadway between the two places. Jensen had to visit three different offices – and pay three different sizeable bribes – to attain the papers they needed to make the journey. They hired horses and donkeys again, and provisioned themselves well for the trip, short though it was.

They set out at dawn on the fourth of June, their eyes squinting in the harsh desert sun, their movements slow and deliberate and careful. The guardsmen were on constant alert, scanning the barren wastes for signs of hostility. The tension bothered them almost as much as the blasting heat, which sapped them of moisture and energy and burned their skins a fiery red. Despite the dire warnings, though, they met no resistance at all for the first three days. On the second day, in the distance, they saw a long line of camels, loping and slow, led by a group about a dozen strong. The group paid them no mind, though, and soon disappeared into the distance.

They came upon a small settlement on the afternoon of the fourth day, a half dozen little round dwellings surrounding a well. Heavy clusters of dates hung from several palm trees, and grass grew in clumps near them. They stopped at the foremost hut, which had a sign indicating food and drink within, and a smiling middle-aged couple came out to greet them. Jensen relaxed a little at the sight of them, so soft and seemingly harmless.

They took their midday meal there, a delicious thick stew with plain dark bread and frothy beer. Because most of the day was already spent, they pitched their tents and settled down to doze through the hottest part of the day. Jensen laid back on his blanket and closed his eyes. Ever since he had kissed Alona in the garden he had slept restlessly, exhaustion slowing his reflexes and making his eyes burn. Some rest at midday felt delicious to his aching limbs. He had nearly drifted off when Odo rushed into the tent, eyes wild.

“Captain,” he gasped. “A force approaches from the west.”

Heart in his throat, Jensen leapt to his feet and dashed to the lookout point. Wyclef was running from tent to tent, summoning the others. As soon as Jensen glanced at the riders approaching he knew they were in trouble. There were at least fifty of them galloping hard on little desert ponies, weapons glinting in the sun, some wearing flowing robes while others were attired European style, in tunics and breeches.

Jensen flew into motion, ordering the men to surround the outpost, keeping the women and servants inside the ring, gathering armor and weapons and setting up defensive positions. Then, what seemed like a moment later, the howling line of combatants struck them and once again Jensen was swept up in a brutal life and death struggle. All his attention narrowed to his body in this one, precise moment – his arms, tense and tight, moving in a whir – strike, parry, defend, stab, butt, strike, strike, strike. He fought with vicious determination, driving opponents back, moving mercilessly, ignoring the puny blows against his body, the insignificant brushes that rolled off him like rainwater off a cap, harmless. The thud of his heart, the rasp of his breath, the clink of metal on metal and the grunts of effort – these were all that he heard. Enemy after enemy was all he saw. He was like a sleepwalker, intent and unseeing except by some inner, unknowing eye. For this reason, it took him a long moment to hear Tristan’s desperate cries.

The boy called out his name as he dodged through combatants, brown hair flying in the breeze, chest unprotected by armor. He held his trusty, half-dull dagger, but he was far more intent on getting to Jensen than on wielding it. Jensen dispatched his opponent with brutal efficiency, his skilled sword outmatching the man’s small axe.

Jensen met Tristan a moment later and knotted his fist in the boy’s tunic to pull him close enough to hear what he was gibbering over the battle din. He heard “Alona” and followed the line of his pointing finger to see two armed men burst through the flap into Alona’s tent. The screams of her maids were terrible. He lunged forward, Tristan following alongside. They got there just as the two men emerged from Alona’s tent, one of them carrying her, kicking and screaming, under a hairy, thick arm.

Rage clouded Jensen’s vision. He fought like a wild thing, fast and angry, focused on freeing Alona and not caring about how many blows he took upon his own body in the meantime. He disabled both men in short order, delivering a killing blow to each as soon as they went down – slitting the first one’s throat and stabbing the second through the heart.

Alona fell, unbalanced by the man who had seized her, golden hair mussed and dress filthy. She gaped at the dead men before her, and a thin, warbling cry issued from her lips. Jensen seized her by the forearm and hustled her inside the tent. Hilda lay sprawled on the mess of blankets, out cold, a bruise darkening her chin. Cora huddled in the corner, crying and whimpering.

“Stay,” Jensen commanded Alona who, though dazed-looking, nodded at him. “We’ll be right outside.” He gestured to Tristan and they stepped out the tent flap.

The fight raged all around them, and it didn’t look good for their side. They were outnumbered, but the skill of their guardsmen helped even the odds. The main thrust of the enemy’s advance seemed to be directed toward Alona’s tent, and for that reason Jensen determined to stay where he was, flanked by Tristan.

Jensen’s body thrummed with tension, and every moment alternated between stretching wide and long and slow or passing in shuttered, galloping clips. He struggled to ignore the screams of the dying and wounded and concentrate on the flow of the fighting, so that he might judge the likely result of the attack. What he concluded made his stomach sour.

“Tristan,” he managed in a strong voice that betrayed none of his growing trepidation. “Come,” he said, ducking back into the tent. Tristan followed.

Alona sat alone in the center of the tent, arms wrapped around her knees, her face drawn and her brown eyes huge. She took one look at the expression on Jensen’s face and shook her head. “No.”

He came to his knees in front of her. “Should they overrun us, my lady …” He choked on the words. “That is, I am prepared to do what must be done to spare you the degradation of capture.” They both knew what “degradation” was the polite term for: rape and enslavement, vile abuses the likes of which he shuddered to contemplate. He watched the impact of his stumbling words dawn on her – saw the horror in her eyes as he drew the dagger Morden had given him and showed it to her. “But only if you give me leave.”

She gave a little involuntary sob and closed her eyes. The scream of a horse nearby, and the rising sounds of combat, startled her back to reality then. “If there is no hope, then yes,” she breathed in a desperate rush.

He moved to her side then, settling on his knees with the knife cold and hard in his palm.

“Tristan,” he said, and caught the eye of the boy, who looked as grave and fearful as Jensen had ever seen him. “Should they overrun us you must not fight them, do you hear? Watch over Cora and Hilda. Tell the bandits that we forced you to serve us and they may let you live unmolested.”

Upon hearing this, Cora let out a thin wail and began to sob in earnest, her thin shoulders shaking.

“I would rather die fighting than cower before them!” Tristan hissed, eyes fierce, posture tensed and barely restrained.

Jensen tried to smile, but his face felt set in a mask. “I know. But you may be the only defender that Cora and Hilda have. You must see to their safety if I cannot.”

Jensen’s death was the only reason he would not be able to see to their safety himself, and they both knew it.

Tristan’s face twisted with unhappiness but he gave an abrupt nod.

“Good boy,” Jensen said, and that was the last time he spoke for what seemed like forever as they listened to the terrible sounds of struggle all around them.

Alona clutched her prayer beads and whispered prayers in a low quick voice.  Once, a lance pierced the fabric of the tent and embedded itself in the earth just behind Jensen’s kneeling figure. Alona gave a cry and pressed into Jensen’s side, her whole body trembling. Jensen wrapped an arm around her and squeezed in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.

The sounds of combat were dimming now, and Jensen made out the unfamiliar voices of several men talking in Frankish. His stomach plummeted and his head began to buzz as though it were home to a hive of angry bees. So, this was it, then. The end to his short, dangerous life. First, though, he had to attend to a few unpleasant tasks.

He drew Alona’s back against his chest, one arm covering her breast, small and heaving with emotion. She folded herself against him and he pressed a kiss to her temple.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice cracking, and brought the hand clutching the dagger to rest on her collarbone, the blade’s edge sharp and gleaming.

They waited, scarcely breathing, frozen like tragic Roman statues in the midst of some gruesome scene – Laocoon and his sons struggling against the serpents or the abduction of the Sabine women. Finally a deep voice called out, “Lady Alona Morden, come forth.”

Alona gasped, and Jensen jerked in surprise. His brain, frozen with dread at the thought of the terrible task that lay before him, suddenly cranked to life again, thoughts speeding like the whir of bird’s wings.

There were indistinct sounds then, and a moment later a blood-stained, red-faced bandit drew back the tent flap and peered inside, his eyes growing large at the tableau before him. He ducked out and said something low and fast in what sounded like Frankish. The man who strode through the tent flap next was big and burly with red hair and a red and gray beard that buried his chin in a profusion of wiry hairs.

“You!” Jensen blurted out. For indeed, he recognized the man from that first attack at the bridge and then the scuffle in Arles.

The man lifted his chin and stated flatly, “Know that you have been defeated by Mal, son of Heinricus. Turn over the Lady Alona to me forthwith and you may live to see another sunrise.”

Jensen shifted and tensed, raising the knife so that it rested on the delicate skin at Alona’s throat. “I will not. I swore an oath to her husband that I would spare her defilement and I mean to carry that out.” Jensen spoke with passion and conviction, and the sight of him, sweaty and strung out with purpose, must have been potent indeed.

Mal’s eyes widened and his face transformed, suddenly conciliatory. “Come now – there’s no need to slit such a pretty throat. We mean her no harm. Surely her husband would prefer to pay a ransom for her retrieval rather than have her killed.”

“You would have me believe that you followed us across the face of the earth so that you could demand a ransom from a minor nobleman’s wife?”

Mal gave a faint smile, a little rueful. “But the ransom is sweet, young knight.”

“And who would hold it?” Jensen demanded.

“Lord Manus of Toulouse.”

Alona drew in a surprised breath, then burst out angrily, “Foul thief! Loathsome pirate! I would just as soon have my throat slit than allow my husband to pay ransom to such a flea on the backside of –“

Mal drew his arm back and stepped forward threateningly. “Silence this woman or I will do it for you!”

“Alona!” Jensen barked.

Alona obeyed, though Jensen could practically feel the venom of her rage leaking from her skin.

“Pray tell me your terms for the rest of the party, then,” Jensen said, falling back into the familiar language of battlefield negotiation.

“I give you no leave to discuss terms!” Alona seethed, trembling with emotion.

Mal’s face turned stormy and he made a move to lean forward and seize her. Jensen recoiled from the advance, drawing Alona more tightly against his chest.

“Do not come closer!” Jensen warned. “I have no wish to harm my lady, but on my honor I must do as she says.”

Mal scoffed. “Harming her is pure foolishness. She is a valuable gem. You have no one else to bargain with in any case.”

“If I valued coin above my honor that would be so but I do not, bandit, so I will repeat myself just once more. Stand back!”

For a drawn out moment Jensen thought the bandit would abandon all pretext of civility and lunge toward them, forcing him to action. They must have made a desperate sight – he sweat-soaked and battle-mussed, and Alona, wild-eyed and shaking, Cora’s whimpers a constant low accompaniment.

Mal’s posture relaxed by the smallest degree, and he acceded. “My terms are this: hand over the lady with the full knowledge that she will be protected and untouched and take those who remain of your force from the Holy Land with what equipment we leave you. Do not seek revenge for our attack, but simply go forth and do not return. Such is fair in my eyes. You may, of course, have a moment to discuss these terms. But do so quickly.”

Mal exited the tent then, and Jensen released Alona so that she fell to one side and he to the other. She was pale and panting, cheeks flushed with rage and an excess of fear and anxiety.

Jensen had been through hard combat—battle blows and strenuous physical effort, but what came next—fending off Alona’s sharp tongue and enraged defiance, took every bit of energy and self control he could muster.

-*-

Tristan scarcely understood the fierce, whispered exchange between Jensen and Alona. Words like “honor” and “blood feud” combined with “greedy,” “scurrilous,” and “utterly reprehensible.” It took a while for Tristan to parse the meaning of Alona’s upset and Jensen’s objection, and the seriousness of the situation.

Lord Manus was the neighbor—and loathsome sworn enemy of Lord Morden, an old fashioned Druid who refused to accept the church as his master and instead insisted upon worshipping at glade and spring. He had many schemes to drive Morden from his land, one of which was not bothering to keep up the Roman aqueduct through his property, so that the water was foul and trickling when it made its way to Morden’s land. He had slaughtered livestock and beat peasants, he was even accused of raping sisters who were yet children, and whose mother committed suicide rather than deal with the shame of their defilement.

Did Jensen not wonder why Geoffrey must needs stay at home rather than take his rightful place at Alona’s side, as was his husband’s duty? Because he must need stay and guard against depredations by Lord Manus, that was why.

Alona carried on with such a flurry of condemnation and anger toward Jensen that her words made him flush with fury, then pale with it, his normal calm demeanor strung out on a thin wire of tension.

“His treachery knows no bounds!” Alona railed on. “Ransom – pshah! My fate is most likely to be sore abuse the likes of which I would not survive or, in the best possible case, be used as a pawn against my husband to strip him of lands granted to him by the Long-haired Kings themselves! I will not stand for it, Jensen – I simply will not!” By this time tears were streaming down her cheeks, which were bright and red with two high spots of color.

The two of them sat looking intently at one another after Alona finished her rampage. At last, Jensen said, “I will take care of it.”

He rose stiffly and exited the tent without another word. Alona let out a shaky breath and turned her face away, the emotion of the whole experience evidently undoing her.

 

Cora seemed to have an endless repository of tears. No matter how Tristan tried (awkwardly) to smooth her arm or murmur words of comfort, they seemed to have no effect. He could think of nothing else that might help, and anyhow his attention was on what was happening outside with Jensen. He strained to hear but all he could decipher was the occasional low timbre of Jensen’s voice and the louder, but no more comprehensible tones of Mal, the treacherous barbarian.

After what seemed like an hour, Jensen ducked back in the tent. His expression was dark and strained. He knelt next to Alona where his sword lay discarded and grasped it, standing and sliding it into the sheath at his back.

“Come outside,” he said. “And pray that God favors me in what is to come, for if I triumph then none of us shall face bondage – most especially you, my lady,” he said to Alona. Her upturned face was rapt as she regarded him, as though she beheld the countenance of a saint and not a man like any other.

 

An afternoon wind had kicked up, sending sand and dust whirling across the desert floor and making the clay bells hung by the villagers swing and tinkle.

A field had been cleared between the two sides. One the one side stood Mal, with his men ranging behind him. Jensen stood facing him. Mal’s motley group of barbarians jostled one another, laughing and high-spirited, while Jensen’s group, whittled down to half by the attack, with several of them wounded, looked tense and haggard.

Jensen looked young and thin against Mal’s greater bulk, smooth-faced and grave. He gave one brief glance at Tristan and Alona, who had somehow unconsciously drifted together and stood clutching one another’s arms. Alona’s veil snapped in the wind, causing her to hold it together under her chin with one hand. The afternoon light through the thin blue cloth illuminated the veil’s gold piping, and made Alona herself glow like he imagined the saints glowed.

The eldest of the raiders, a thin wiry fellow whose beard was braided into a single, triangular shape, gave the ringing, deep shout that initiated combat.

Jensen grew animated at once, his long form fluid and skilled. The blade of his rune-hilted sword whistled through the air as he wielded it, advancing aggressively on the barbarian, who, for his part, charged forward like a rampaging bull, heavy, muscled, and strong.

The clang of their meeting swords drew a gasp from Alona, whose thin fingers squeezed Tristan’s bicep like sharp iron nails. Her eyes were riveted on Jensen, and her plump pink lips were parted.

Mal’s face soon reddened with exertion, and he seemed buoyed by the encouragement of his fellows, who banged swords and daggers together and gave strange abrupt yips that must have been some sort of shorthand tribal communication. Jensen countered blow upon blow with a sort of practiced ease that made Tristan jealous of his skill in one moment and fearful for him in the next because he could see the small signs of fatigue – the held shoulder and slight stumble – that betrayed what a long, tiring day it had been.

Mal, already bested twice by Jensen, seemed bound and determined not to let it happen again. He attacked in a flurry of motion, striking so hard and fast that Tristan had trouble keeping track of all the blows, and which grunts were from effort and which from pain.

Jensen reversed his hold on his sword and landed a solid strike under Mal’s chin with the hilt, which caused his head to jerk back. He stumbled a few steps, then roared in frustration and thrust his blade into Jensen’s midriff.

Jensen wrenched himself backward, then spun about and struck Mal a meaty blow at the juncture of neck and shoulder, cleaving deeply and causing a gout of blood to pour down the man’s chest in a deadly river. Mal’s mouth worked soundlessly and the expression of shock and disbelief on his broad face was terrible enough to cause everyone to fall silent. He dropped his blade and clawed ineffectively at the wound, staggering a few steps here and there and gurgling helplessly before his knees gave out and he fell on his back, convulsing in death throes for an endless moment before falling still. The air left his lungs with a pitiful, final sigh.

Jensen stood breathing heavily until the onlookers began shifting. He hastened to place himself in front of Tristan, Alona and the others, then. Streaked with sweat and dust, he shouted, “Uphold your leader’s bargain now or fight us again, knowing that Saint Mark will wreak vengeance on you for breaking our agreement.”

They held their breaths as the forty-odd men, leaderless and confused, and weighed down by the weapons and armor they had scavenged from the dead, muttered amongst themselves, but drifted off the way they had come. Jensen and the others watched warily, and when the last of them had disappeared over the desert, they let out a collective sigh of relief.

Jensen turned to Tristan and swallowed, his eyes a little dazed, the tension of the fight at last draining from his limbs and making him slow with fatigue. “We, uh, we should probably leave this place, in case they change their minds and decide to return.”

Tristan tamped down the exultation and relief that the raiders’ departure spurred in him. “I will gather our gear,” he offered, and headed toward the tents. Some niggling intuition made him stop after a few steps and turn back to look again at Jensen. He stood where he was, a blank look on his face, swaying a little in exhaustion. Seeming to feel eyes on him, he glanced up at Tristan, and took a step toward him. His knee buckled and he slid in a slow descent to the desert floor, hand pressed to his side.

Tristan lunged forward to catch him, gripping Jensen’s upper arms and feeling the trembling in them. Jensen’s head tipped up. His face had paled to an alarming degree.

Heart rising in his chest, Tristan pawed at the hand that covered Jensen’s side, fingers skating over the heavy chain mail, made warm from the sun and Jensen’s body heat. He found it quickly enough, just above Jensen’s right hip – broken metal links and dark red blood. 

“No,” Tristan said.

Jensen looked down at himself and blinked slowly. “Help me rise. I’ll bind it later, when we are safe.”

The others milling about began to notice that something was wrong. “Jensen!” Alona called in a rising tone of dismay.

He tried to come to his feet, but his body gave out and Tristan was in the wrong position to catch him, so he fell to the dusty brown earth, sweat standing out in beads on his forehead. His eyes seemed far away.  He made abortive movements, trying to fend Tristan and the others off, and rise, but he had no real strength and after a while he simply sagged to the earth and lay still.

By the time they carried him to the tent and peeled off his clothing he had fallen into a stupor, eyelashes stark against waxy skin. The wound was like a terrible red spring, pumping in slow thick pulses around jagged, torn flesh.

Tristan stumbled back to let Cora and Odo, who had worked as a field surgeon in past days, do their work.

A dust storm howled across the desert that night, which was as long and terrible as any Tristan could remember.

Part IX

 

Comments

[sandymg.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have lasted five minutes. Tis sad but true. Yikes. What an untenable situation. Death or rape and torture? Women had it so bad. Of course this could lead me to a tirade about things aren't anywhere as improved as they should be world wide. But I won't hijack your comment that way.

Tense and suspenseful. Another great chapter. Every RL interruption irrates me as I want to see them continue their journey and want to know what happens next. Alona is so brave. Jensen is such a hero and Tristan's worship of him grows. My only mystery is Alona's marriage. I don't have a handle on Geoffrey or their relationship. Perhaps more will come out re this later.