Chapter 13

Once again pushing Leo away, Rosalind noted a flash of ivory moving her direction. Randel, no longer so mellow, strode straight at them with stark determination, and if she was not mistaken, even a bit of anger.

“Leo of Cyprus, you push the lady too far.”

“You see, Rosalind, even he thinks you are a lady.” Leo just chuckled devilishly.

“This is not a game. I must ask that you unhand her.”

“All is well, Sir Randel. ’Tis just Leo’s way.” But Rosalind took this opportunity to stand and move apart from Leo.

“If you wish to spend time with her, by all means do. But if you plan to leave her alone in the moonlight . . .” Leo wiggled his brows. “I cannot be held responsible for my actions.”

“In fact, I was just heading this way to ask Rosalind to walk with me.”

“What a wonderful idea.” Sincere joy bubbled in Rosalind’s chest and burst into a smile across her face.

“Come.” Randel wrapped an arm over her shoulder, and not for the first time, she noted how snuggly she fit against him. She reached up to place her hand over his, and tossed a triumphant look over her shoulder at Leo.

“He is still watching us,” she whispered close to Randel’s ear.

If she was not mistaken, he shivered as her breath tickled his skin.

“We shall give him something to watch.”

Randel led her between two tall tents to a narrow area that only Leo could see. Then he twisted her in his arms and pulled her to him. As Rosalind gasped and turned her questioning gaze up to Randel’s dark eyes, she spotted something there she had never seen before. An intensity. A strength. And a yearning. As her mouth still gaped in shock, he caught it with his own.

Something about the all-too-familiar sensation caught her off guard, and her body responded, even as her mind struggled to make sense of it all.

Fire shot through her, and old feelings she had thought long buried surged to life. Precious seconds passed before she found the strength and the shred of intention needed to pry her mouth away from his. She buried her head against Randel’s sturdy chest. Wanting to hide her reaction. Ashamed of her ardent response.

She did not wish to be that girl again.

Dear God, help me. What had he done? Though not quite a saint, Randel had never let his instincts overtake his rational mind in such a manner before. “It was just a kiss,” he whispered over her head. “Merely a kiss,” he repeated, for both of their sakes.

But he knew it had been much more, and surely she felt it too. Rosalind and Randel, both committed to remaining unmarried for their own reasons, had tangled their hearts during those brief moments. That was not how a warrior monk behaved. “I am sorry,” he said, “I did not mean it to go that far.”

Yet he clung to her as if he had been tossed into the sea during a shipwreck, and she were a beam of wood that might float him safely to shore.

“No, it was my fault,” the pain in her voice stabbed deep into his chest.

He grabbed her precious face in his two hands and pressed his forehead to hers. “Do not say—”

But he was cut off by a boisterous pounding. Leo banged his metal cup against the rock beneath him and cheered. “I concede! Enough already. You win. I am quite convinced.”

Of course, Leo, the reason Randel had found himself in this situation. He had been determined to set the man straight and drive him away from Rosalind once and for all. Yet the minute he pulled Rosalind into his arms, his anger had shifted to a different sort of intensity.

“Go away, Leo.” Randel let his hands slip down her arms and fall to his sides in defeat. He closed his eyes.

Leo must have acquiesced, for a chuckle faded into the night even as Rosalind continued to press her face into his chest. Good, for he did not wish to see the haunted eyes that would surely match the raw pain in her voice.

This was not supposed to happen. And yet it felt so right. As if the stars had finally aligned and his life at long last made perfect sense. Except that it made no sense at all. His path had been planned. He had reconciled himself to becoming a Templar. It was what he wanted, or so he had thought until just a moment ago . . .

This could be so simple.

He could gladly marry the girl. Except that he would lose his family and his place in the world. And beyond that, he reminded himself, she did not wish to marry him either. That pain he had heard when she spoke . . . Oh, how he hated himself for being the source of it.

“Leo is gone. I do not think he will bother you again.” He tipped up Rosalind’s chin and found the courage to face her troubled gaze.

“But . . .” she said.

“Shh . . . all is well. Forward, ever forward. Remember? I am sorry our kiss got a bit beyond my intentions, but I think it served its purpose.”

“But . . .” She turned to see that Leo had gone, then back to Randel, then pressed her head to him again. “I suppose you are right.”

There was no point in bringing up all the bizarre and mystical things that had passed between them in that addlebrained instant while their lips met.

“Nothing has changed,” he said, although he knew the words were not quite true. But he said them for her good. He would do anything to soothe the misery in her eyes.

“Nothing has changed,” she murmured hopefully against his tunic.

“Nothing has changed,” he assured her, attempting to mean it this time.

“Ever forward, never back.”

“Precisely,” he said, although quite how he could move forward from this moment, he did not know. At least tomorrow would bring their first skirmish. Right now he needed the immediacy and danger of battle to drive these confusing feelings far from his mind.

Silent tears streamed down Rosalind’s face as she tried to sleep, replaying the unfortunate kiss again and again in her mind.

After losing Sir Hugh, she had assumed she would never experience such sensations again. She had been wrong. Perhaps she had allowed herself to heal too much. She should not let herself enjoy life to such a degree after what she had done.

The waves came again, the pain rose up within her.

At the time the decision had made so much sense. “Just take the potion,” her mother had said. “It will be simple,” she had assured Rosalind.

She had known Hugh would never marry her. Although she had not protected her virtue zealously enough, neither did she wish to be a nobleman’s kept woman. And she needed to provide for her mother and siblings. She’d determined that never again would she watch them starve the way they had after her father passed away.

But from the moment the awful act was done, she’d known what a tragic error it had been. And Hugh had made sure to crush her into the ground with his words, so much so that she had thought she might never rise again.

“Thief, harlot, murderer!”

Those names yet haunted her, ringing all too true.

Did Randel know?

He and Hugh were the best of friends. But somehow she suspected Randel would not judge her so harshly even if he did. He would recognize her intense regret, partake in her pain, and shoulder her weighty guilt alongside her.

Still she could not bring herself to utter such awful words to her dear friend. As far as she was aware, only her mother and Hugh—and of course every priest who had graced her confessional—knew the truth.

Father Andrew had assured her again and again in that shadowy place on shipboard that her penance had been long paid, but she could not bring herself to believe him. She would continue attempting to earn her forgiveness, until at last her own heart ceased to bleed.

But that kiss . . . the kiss had been a dreadful error. She must never let it happen again! At the time of her indiscretion with Hugh she had been of the prevailing mindset that only nuns, monks, and priests were called to holy lives. That it was only natural for regular folk to give in to their passions and desires.

But she knew better now. And she would never give way to such temptations again. Especially not with another nobleman—no matter how superior his character might be. No matter how different her heart told her that his kiss was from Hugh’s.

She took a deep breath and attempted to slow her racing thoughts. How she missed the mother of her early years in moments like this. How she longed to press her face into her mother’s nurturing shoulder and cry upon it. She felt adrift, alone, despite the many sleeping girls surrounding her.

On so many occasions, she still needed the wisdom and guidance of a parent herself. However, it was her mother’s poor advice that had gotten her to this point. And she dared not speak of her sins to any of the righteous women on this crusade. Somehow she must trudge forward on her own.

By tomorrow morning she needed to put all of this turmoil behind her and be strong for the children. She could not let them down at the moment of their first battle.

The next day, about the time the sun was highest in the sky, Randel led the children to a ridge overlooking what would be the site of their first battle. Lady Honoria and Sir Ademar had led the women to a similar ridge slightly farther to the south. A vast valley spread before them with a large walled prison fortress tucked in the center. Beyond it on the next rise lay a village—an enemy village.

As they lined up the horses, they took the opportunity to drink deeply from their skins of water. The entire army of crusaders—Englishmen, Tripolians, and Cyprians alike—had pushed hard all morning to get here without being detected.

Waking and packing before the dawn, they had moved hard and fast from the southern border of the crusader-held area of Tripoli into the Saracen territory. These mountains had once been held by the Europeans, but they were overtaken some twenty years earlier during the time of the legendary Saracen leader, Saladin. Now, through a tenuous peace agreement with their fellow Moslems, the minority Druze Moslem group, who mixed Islam with several older religions, held the southern portion of the Shouf Mountains, the city of Beirut, and the prison before them.

Randel watched as their troops moved stealthily and quietly down the hill toward the sprawling prison, which reportedly held many of the Europeans caught during the push to take back the Kingdom of Jerusalem during the last attempt in 1217.

His sword hand twitched. He remembered well the battle fever that overtook a man as danger grew near. A part of him wished to be following the army down the hillside. But war did dark, horrible things to a man’s psyche, and he was still recovering from the battle at Gravensworth Castle.

He yet kept Humphrey nearby each night to wake him in case he began screaming in his dreams. Only once had he frightened the children in his care, but they had managed to make a joke of it. He supposed there was some benefit in having an older, less naïve boy among the group.

And although Randel might miss out on some valuable battle experience this day, he would be gaining leadership experience instead. He had been trusted not only with protecting the children, but with communications and distance defense as well. If anything went wrong, he and Sir Ademar would need to think fast and set matters straight.

“Sir Randel.” Rosalind rode up beside him. “Perhaps now you can tell us of the plan.”

“Of course.” He alone had been trusted with the details, but now that the moment was upon them, it was for the best that everyone be apprised.

“As I am certain you deduced, the crux of the plan for this first attack is stealth and speed. With any fortune, the Saracens have no reason to suspect our approach. We do not wish to turn this into a full-scale war, for the enemy has hundreds of supportive cities at their backs, and we have only the Mediterranean at ours, with most of the crusader troops currently occupied in Egypt.”

Their army, which had swelled to over five hundred men with the addition of the Tripolian and Cyprian troops, should be able to take a prison, but they were no match for the huge armies native to this land. Not at all like when the tens of thousands of Europeans had flooded to this area like a swollen river of people in the early days of the crusades.

Randel gazed down at the prison as he spoke. “So we must strike quickly. They keep a full troop of guards at this prison fort to help protect the area, but to our knowledge, there are no large Saracen armies within fifty or sixty miles of here. There is one sizeable village about a half mile to the east. But unless a guard escapes, there is no reason to suspect they will find us out and send reinforcements.”

“So this should be easy.” Jervais sat back in the saddle with an arrogant grin.

Randel glared at the boy. “War is never easy. Hundreds of things might go wrong. We might have underestimated our enemy. We might have been monitored by spies. There could be traitors among us. We must be ready for anything.”

“So what is our part?” Philippe asked from his place next to Sapphira. He had decided to join their special troop to help guard her rather than heading into the thick of battle, although he seemed well trained and bursting with courage.

But Randel was happy to have him, and with Philippe, Humphrey, Rosalind, and some of the children who had grown quite adept at fighting, he had not felt it necessary to ask for more guards to watch over them. They should be safe enough on their ridge.

“Our part is mostly to support in prayer,” Sapphira answered Philippe’s question with confidence.

“Of course,” Randel said. “We will pray. I have done my study of these crusades, and I believe some of the most successful battles were supported by troops assigned specifically to prayer. Sapphira, would you like to lead us when the time comes?”

“I would be honored.”

He continued, “But we must also be at the ready for whatever might occur. Particularly with archery support. We are in an excellent position here.”

“They are getting close,” Garrett whispered, as if worried he might reveal their position.

Sadie stared straight ahead and nodded stoically. “I am ready.”

“We are all ready,” Rosalind confirmed.

“One more thing,” Randel said. “We are not to be heroes. If matters do go amiss, we will meet up with Lady Honoria’s troop and rush back to crusader-held territory. It will be our duty to get word to Tripoli if, heaven forbid, the others fall into enemy hands. And once the battle is over, we will help tend the wounded.”

If at all possible, the children grew more serious as the weight of their responsibility washed over them. But they could not even begin to comprehend the heavy weight Randel carried. For he alone of this group understood the reality of war, and he would do anything in his power to keep them safe. He could not, would not, fail again.

Glancing across a shallow ravine, he squinted to better see Lady Honoria’s troop. Sir Ademar would keep them safe, and many of her women were quite capable with the bow. Plus Father Andrew and two of the lesser knights accompanied them. He spotted Jocelyn, looking misplaced in this weighty situation.

Out of nowhere, the memory of his shocking kiss with Rosalind washed over him. But there was no time to think of romance now, and he was somewhat surprised to realize he had not thought of it all morning, even with Rosalind at his side. He had thought of her simply as a trusted comrade. Thank goodness, for he would need reliable allies this day.

He assessed his troop one last time, even as foot soldiers began to stealthily spread through the nearly barren valley below.

Meanwhile the knights galloped full speed toward the prison entrance about a furlong away. With any fortune, by the time the guards inside saw them, they would already be battering down the door. They did not want a siege situation. Rather, they wished to overtake the place before the enemy was prepared. But already Randel saw a frantic scurry within the outer walls of the prison.

They had been spotted, and Saracen guards flooded the courtyard of the prison. Again his sword hand twitched to join the battle, but again, he turned his thoughts to his own mission.