Knight Assassin (9781622664573) Page 2

  “Zayn!” Miriam cried as the knights dragged her out the door. She looked frantically at Guy. “Please, Lord de Molay. I will go with you willingly. Just don’t hurt my daughter.”

  Guy tightened his grip on Zayn, the metal rings of his hauberk digging into her flesh. “Shut your mouth, sorceress. You are in no position to be asking favors.”

  The men dragged Zayn and Miriam to the center of the village, which was little more than a courtyard with a well nestled amid the scattered mud-brick homes. The three-story minaret of the village mosque was black in the night sky, and Zayn’s gaze fixed on it in terror. She and her mother had gone to the mosque only a handful of times, until they’d realized they were not welcome. Was God punishing her and her mother? She looked now at the square and realized that this punishment had been premeditated: a stake had been driven into the earth and surrounded at its base by straw and wood. Miriam had stopped struggling, and tears streamed down her face as one of Guy’s men smeared her clothes with sulfur.

  Gasping, Zayn could not get enough air into her lungs. A crowd had gathered around them, and she looked at their blank faces imploringly. They were a mix of villagers and Franks, and they refused to meet her eyes. They won’t let this happen. They can’t let this happen. “Please, please,” she sobbed, “stop this, stop this! Help us, please…” She’d known some of those blank faces her entire life, acknowledging them without knowing who they really were. Musa the baker, Malik the tanner, Dawud the potter, their wives, their children. They were always cordial to Miriam and Zayn, but they maintained their distance, disapproval in their eyes. Zayn began to choke on her tears, finally understanding that no one would help her. Desperately, she thought of Earic. He would help me, I know he would. But Earic was nowhere to be seen.

  Miriam was chained to the stake as Zayn screamed and struggled, slicing her skin against Guy’s hauberk and his sword. “Burn me instead,” she pleaded hoarsely to him, turning her head and scraping her cheek against his metallic chest. “I beg of you, spare my mother and kill me in her place.” Where was her power when she needed it? Why wasn’t it returning?

  “But I don’t want to kill you, my pretty little Saracen,” Guy said, his velvet voice laced with malice, stroking her head with dirty fingers.

  She twisted her head and bit his thumb—hard. He gasped as the redheaded knight snickered. “By God, she is devilishly quick!” the knight said.

  Guy responded by backhanding Zayn across the face with enough strength to loosen teeth. Blood filled her mouth, and he laughed as she struggled fiercely, an agonized scream bubbling from her throat. Suddenly, the pile at the base of the stake caught fire with a great whoosh, and Zayn locked eyes with Miriam, whose face was a mask of anguish. The flames instantly consumed her, and the villagers gasped and stepped away in fear.

  Miriam’s form shimmered as though it were made of fire itself. Zayn thought she could hear her mother screaming, but the screams were her own. She doubled over and threw up the remains of her dinner, then gasped for breath. She sought her mother’s figure, but she saw nothing. The smoke, thick and black, made Zayn’s eyes sting and her vision blur.

  All the while, Guy kept a fierce grip on Zayn. “She’s dead,” she heard him say to the others. “Wait a bit longer, then put the fire out. I’ll be right back.”

  “You’ll not be able to manage that hellcat alone, Guy!” the redhead chortled.

  Guy looked down at Zayn, who hung limply in his arms, blood trickling from her mouth. “She’ll submit to me, even if I have to kill her,” he answered. He lifted Zayn and flung her over his shoulder. She didn’t resist. She could fight him, she knew, if only she could control her power. She could even possibly beat him, or at the very least, get away. But her desire to persevere had fled her, and her supernatural strength had gone with it. The moment Guy had threatened her mother’s life, Zayn’s fear had drained her of power. Now, her distress prevented it from returning. She was hollow, gutted. Let the Frank punish her—she was the reason her mother was dead. How many times had she gone behind her mother’s back to poach on Lord de Molay’s lands? And she had been so filled with contempt when Mahmud’s son had asked for her hand in marriage, so utterly ignorant of the danger she was putting her mother in. Oh God! It was all her fault, and she deserved to die.

  He took her behind a pen where sheep were kept and dropped her into a pile of hay. She was numb and trembling, twisting her head from side to side as the sheep bleated, peering curiously at her from brown faces. He unbuckled his sword and tossed it aside, then easily slipped out of his heavy mail hauberk. It landed on the ground with a thud, and he fumbled to remove his chausses and braies. “Earic isn’t here to defend you this time, is he, Zayn?” He chuckled. “You’re filth, all of you.” Then he spat in the straw beside her head.

  Zayn could not stop gasping, her entire body shaking. Pulling up her nightgown, he pried her thighs apart with his knee. She squeezed her eyes shut but refused to whimper at the worsening pain. She’s dead. I killed her. He’s right, I am filth. Zayn turned her head and looked at the sword that lay several feet away in the hay. Rather than try and reach for it, she closed her eyes, mentally escaping her body. Run away, run far away. She was twelve years old again, free of this malady that was womanhood, climbing high up into a carob tree…

  …

  She peered down through the branches as the boys approached, their crossbows cocked. She’d seen Guy and Henri, the dark-haired ones, many times before; they were brothers, sons of the lord of Montferrand. Both boys possessed pert, upturned noses, calculating brown eyes, and stocky builds. Zayn had never seen the third boy before, and she admired how his hair glinted white-gold in the sunlight. He had a slighter build than those of his dark-haired friends, and unlike them, he held a longbow taut in his hands. Zayn’s respect for the fair boy immediately went up a notch, since longbows required far more strength and skill to shoot than crossbows.

  A baboon can shoot a crossbow. Zayn wrinkled her nose in contempt.

  The boys moved carefully, the oldest brother, Guy, ahead of the other two, and all three of their weapons pointed in the same direction. She turned her head slowly to look at the boys’ prey: a liquid-eyed doe and her fawn not twenty yards away, hiding in a shrub. Zayn’s heart thumped in her ears; had she been the one hunting, the chase would have already been over. But from what Zayn had witnessed in the past, Guy and Henri de Molay were unnecessarily cruel. They did not hunt from hunger; they hunted for sport. And rather than eat their kill, they chose to mutilate it, waste it, and occasionally feed it to their dogs.

  She met the frightened fawn’s black eyes, and a lump formed in her throat. She reached into the satchel she wore strapped to her chest to collect carob pods and pulled out a stone. Glittering white, it had caught her eye that morning as she hiked through the woods. Not used to owning pretty, shiny things, she’d picked it up and dropped it in her bag. She now looked down at the smooth stone in her palm and curled her fingers around it tightly. Before she could stop herself, she flung it against a tree several feet behind the boys. The stone hit the trunk with a smack, sending the birds hidden within its branches into the air, their wings flapping furiously.

  Firing their crossbows haphazardly, the boys turned, startled. The doe and her fawn scampered into the woods unharmed, and Zayn smiled. The fair-haired boy hadn’t fired, and he now aimed about, looking up into the trees while his cursing companions struggled to reload their weapons. She froze as he looked up into the carob tree and leveled his arrow directly at her. The heat pricked the back of her neck and her armpits as she held her breath. Then the fair boy stopped squinting, lowering his bow to peer at her with eyes that were a clear, sky blue.

  “A boy,” he muttered, taking a step closer.

  Guy came to stand beside him, scowling in her direction and brandishing his crossbow. “You there!” he shouted.

  She jolted into action, moving swiftly though the branches. She heard what sounded like a scuffle and an argument, an
d she looked down to see the fair boy trying to push the crossbows away from her direction. Guy and Henri would shoot her if they could, she didn’t doubt it. Would the fair boy pay for defending her?

  Her mother’s words came back to her suddenly, like an echo. You are a little bit stronger, a little bit faster, a little bit smarter than them.

  “Than whom?” she had asked.

  Any of them. All of them.

  She’d never tested her mother’s presumption on actual people; she’d been too afraid to. But something now, something about Fair Boy’s behavior, triggered her courage. She was nothing but a Saracen—a Muslim—who’d ruined his hunt, and yet he defended her. She bit her lip, hesitating as she watched the boys tumble to the ground, their fists flying. Guy was about fifteen years old, while Henri and Fair Boy looked to be around fourteen, two years older than she was. Could she handle them?

  Yes. The hum sounded in her ears, and she knew it would grow into a din. The sparkling light intensified; her muscles swelled with the urge to act. The boys were yelling and shoving each other into the dirt when Zayn descended from the branches and dropped to the ground just a few feet away from them.

  They stopped fighting abruptly and turned to look at her in surprise. Fair Boy lay on his back, and Guy straddled him. Henri, who had been more of a spectator than a participant in the struggle, raised his eyebrows and said, “It’s a girl.”

  Fair Boy, his lip busted and bleeding, looked relieved, but the Molay brothers frowned their disappointment. It was no good, beating on a girl who was clearly younger and barely half their size. Zayn was almost disappointed as well—the adrenaline pumped through her veins, and her muscles sought a challenge.

  “Mess with us again,” Guy growled as he approached her, “and we won’t care if you are a girl. We’ll string you up and run you through, filthy Saracen that you are!” He shoved her hard, his palm pressed to the middle of her bony chest.

  She stumbled back, but her hand whipped out and grabbed the boy’s wrist in an iron grip. Before he could fully grasp what was happening, she regained her balance and yanked his arm over her head, sending him soaring into the bushes behind her. He swore as he crashed into the bramble, and when his fall had ended, nothing but the bottoms of his leather boots peeked out from the crushed branches. She spun around, half expecting Henri to attack her, but he simply stood there, his mouth agape.

  “Henri,” Guy groaned as he tried to stand, “grab her!” Goaded into action, Henri lunged for her, but she dodged him, swinging her fist and connecting with the side of his face. Henri collapsed in a heap with a pathetic whimper, a cloud of dirt erupting around him.

  Guy stalked toward Zayn, his face red, twigs and leaves in his hair, and the blade of a knife flashing in his hand. “You little—”

  “No, Guy!” Fair Boy cried, lurching forward.

  Eyeing Guy’s knife, Zayn considered running. Her body hummed with energy, however, and it had a different plan. Her feet stayed rooted to the ground, and every one of her muscles tensed. It was as though her body knew what to do even as her mind scattered with fear. When he sprang on her, she stepped into him and grabbed the hand that held the knife, then twisted herself around, pulling his arm with her. He grunted, his arm trapped against her body. Zayn pulled with all her strength, leaning against his arm, threatening to break it under her. As they fell to the ground, Guy roared and released the knife. It dropped in the grass with a dull thud, and Zayn met Fair Boy’s astonished gaze.

  She was as stunned as he was. Is he smiling at me?

  “Run!” he yelled at her, his smile dissipating as he scrambled for the knife.

  He didn’t have to tell her twice. She lifted herself from a moaning Guy and bolted, her sandaled feet barely brushing the ground as she weaved her way through the trees. Her heart hammered away in her chest, and her surroundings blurred past her in a smudge of brown and green and beige. She wanted to laugh out loud, to leap off the ground and take flight.

  Her mother had been right.

  …

  Finished, Guy stood and dressed. Zayn pulled her nightgown down over her legs and curled onto her side. She sensed him look down at her, but she didn’t look back. “What will you do now, I wonder?” he mused. “No more marriage proposals for you, that’s for certain. When Earic returns to Jerusalem, I’ll tell him what I did to his precious Saracen, and he’ll want nothing to do with you. Not that anything could have come of a romance between the two of you, a Christian and a Muslim.” He let out a harsh laugh. “I hear your mother was a whore. Like mother, like daughter!”

  Earic. Fair Boy. Even as she lay numb, the name pierced her heart like a knife. Gerard de Molay’s young squire had gone to Europe to become a knight five years ago, and she’d awaited his return hopefully, for he’d been her only real friend… Not that it mattered anymore. Her eyes rested on Guy’s sword once again, and she said flatly, “Finish me.”

  Guy followed her gaze and shook his head. “No. Whoredom is what you deserve, not death.” He smiled. “Besides, I enjoyed you. Virgins are so much sweeter than poxed jades. I might want another taste in the future, eh?” He chuckled to himself and left, calling to his comrades.

  Zayn remained curled in the hay, listening to the occasional bleating of the sheep. She wanted the earth to absorb her. She wanted to fold into herself and turn to dust. Closing her eyes, she tried to will her heart to stop beating, drifting into a light, tortured sleep instead. The call to prayer made her open her eyes and see the diffuse glow of twilight. Life was returning to normal in the village of Rafaniya. A woman, a mother, had been burned at the stake just hours ago, but now the villagers went back to their routines, and Miriam’s brutal death would become the stuff of folklore. Perhaps her story would be relayed to disobedient girls as a cautionary tale. See what happens to women who seek to make their own future?

  She would have to move, Zayn knew. The sheepherder would find her lying there and make her leave. She would get no pity from the people of Rafaniya—not that she wanted it. But where would she go? She couldn’t go back to the house she’d so recently shared with her mother. She simply couldn’t. She turned her head and looked at the shed near the pen. Perhaps she could find something in there and finish herself off. Yes, that’s what she would do. Guy de Molay would not touch her again. No one would.

  Her entire body shuddered in pain as she sat up, as though her every bone was shattered. Her arms and legs were mottled with bruises and abrasions, and blood stained her gown and skin. Her thighs were sticky and aching. She stood on shaky legs and pushed her matted hair from her face. A spell of dizziness overtook her, and she leaned against a wooden post to steady herself. The sheep eyed her warily, chewing on hay. Their lives were so simple, those sheep. She envied them. Zayn staggered into the shed, blinking through the murky shadows. There were scythes and sickles, forks and rakes, all of which seemed unwieldy weapons to Zayn. Then a pair of sheep shears glinted at her from a corner, and she took the sharp tool in her hands. She turned it over, contemplating driving the rusty blades into her heart.

  “Seek revenge, not death,” a man’s voice said from behind her.

  Chapter Three

  Zayn turned, the shears still gripped in her hands.

  A man stood at the entrance of the shed, silhouetted against the dawn. He wore a turban, a fine linen tunic over trousers, and a long robe of cotton. Zayn blinked, trying to clear her throbbing head. A city man, not from these parts. He had a long face and a strong nose, and his goatee was neatly trimmed. He looked to be in his early forties. “Who are you to tell me my business?” Zayn croaked.

  The man glanced over his shoulder. “My name is Junaid. Come with me, and I will tell you everything. We are not welcome here.”

  We? Zayn could not shake the fog from her brain. She replied, “Go away. Leave me alone.”

  A door slammed, and a voice rang out. “Intruder! What are you doing in my shed?” The sheepherder was livid, his mustache flecked with crumbs from his breakf
ast. Junaid stepped to the side, and the sheepherder saw Zayn. His eyes widened. “You! What are you doing with my shears? How have you not died of shame yet? Get away from my home!”

  “Let her be, friend,” Junaid said smoothly. “I will take her away, and your shears will remain.”

  But the sheepherder would not listen to reason. He yanked the shears from Zayn’s hands and grabbed her arm. He began to pull her from the shed, yelling at the top of his lungs, when Junaid moved in. He wrapped one arm around the sheepherder’s neck and seemed to embrace him. The sheepherder released Zayn’s arm immediately and within seconds, flopped to the ground, unconscious.

  Zayn gasped. “Did you kill him?”

  Junaid looked at her impatiently. “No. He’s simply out for a bit. He was about to call you a thief and intruder before the village, and you don’t want that, do you?” Zayn shook her head mutely. “I didn’t think so,” he continued. “Shall we get out of here before I have to pull that trick again?”

  “My mother.” Her throat ached. “I must—”

  His voice softened as a shadow crossed his face. “There’s nothing left, Zayn. Now come.”

  Zayn followed him from the village in a daze, her hair batting across her face in tangles, her sullied gown fluttering behind her. This is a nightmare, and I will soon wake up. As they trudged through a field, Junaid pulled a scarf from his belt and handed it to her. “For your hair,” he indicated. “No need to attract attention.” She wrapped the scarf around her head and continued to follow the strange, turbaned man through a wooded area. After stepping on a rock and cutting the sole of her foot, she stopped and slumped to the ground. Junaid paused, turning back to look at her.

  “Just a little bit farther up,” he said.

  She shook her head. “No. I can’t. My whole body hurts, and…I just want to die.” To her horror, she began to cry—big, heaving sobs that racked her whole body.