we died. Let’s move on, in God’s name. That way, even shut in on all sides, we can at least entertain the illusion that we might be able to run between the rocks and save ourselves.”
Andre St. Clair shook his head gently. “I have no doubt you may be right, my friend. And God in His Heaven knows that your abilities to maintain the sanctity and integrity of your own fragile and cowardly skin are legendary. But I believe, nonetheless, that it would be an error to leave so soon. The man we are here to meet might, as I said, have perfectly valid reasons for being late.”
“You call this late? He has slipped by several hours beyond late.”
“One hour, Harry, one hour at most. No more than that. We arrived early.”
“Well, I’m glad at least you didn’t name him Sinclair.”
Andre looked at him quickly. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“This fellow, he could be anyone. Might even be a Muslim bandit, hoping to take you for ransom. We have no proof that he’s the man you seek.”
“No, we have not. Nor have we proof that he is not. So we will wait. And with the grace of God, we shall see.” He tugged at his reins and nudged his horse towards the edge of the hilltop, and Harry moved forward to join him, gazing out at the eerie sameness of the countless stones in this strange stretch of desert. St. Clair arched his back again, raising his bent elbows to shoulder height, then pressing them backward. “Master Douglas,” he said, “I intend to climb down from this saddle now, to stretch my legs and wait in comfort for a spell. You should do the same. But in the meantime, think of something different to talk about … something pleasant and positive.”
Douglas said nothing, but both knights swung down from their mounts and busied themselves in loosening their saddle girths to give their horses a brief respite.
“Did no one ever warn you people never to relax your guard?”
The voice came from directly behind them, so close that the speaker had had no need to shout, and both men spun around so quickly, fumbling for their weapons, that anyone watching might have laughed at their consternation. Harry Douglas was quicker to react than St. Clair. His sword cleared its sheath as he completed his pivot, and he had it half raised to attack before the significance of what he was seeing struck home to him. Andre had been less well balanced when he heard the stranger’s words, and he had to shuffle his feet quickly before he could begin to turn around, but his hand had barely closed about his sword hilt when he identified what he was seeing and straightened up immediately. He did not relinquish his grip on the hilt—the folly of such naive behavior had been drilled into his skull years earlier—but he felt the tension bleed from him as quickly as it had sprung up as he swept his gaze from side to side, searching for others. There were none. The man facing them was alone.
“Who are you?” Harry asked the question before St. Clair could formulate it.
The stranger merely looked back at him. “Who should I be? Whom did you expect to find here, so far into the desert and at such a time of day? I am Alexander Sinclair.”
It was all he needed to say, and Andre felt his heart leap in his chest with relief, not because he had doubted who this was but because he had doubted his own ability to recognize his cousin after so many years. He might, he felt now, have recognized the face, changed though it was, but the voice, deep and resonantly alien in its Scots intonation, was unmistakable and unchanged. Before he could say a word, however, the stranger looked from Harry to him.
“You are young Andre, I can tell. I remember your eyes, and the wee crook in your nose. Had you no’ mentioned that in the message you sent me, I would never have answered you. I have but little truck wi’ people nowadays.”
Andre smiled, feeling euphoric, for he had heard little good of this man since arriving in Outremer, and he had begun to suspect that his cousin might, indeed, have turned away from everything he once knew. Now, however, within moments of setting eyes upon him again, he knew deep down in his heart that Alec Sinclair was no whit less than, or different from, the man he had always been. He was tall and lean, dark eyed, gaunt faced, and long legged, with broad, strong shoulders. His beard was iron gray and clipped short, and in conjunction with the edges of the close-fitting mailed hood he wore beneath his helmet, it emphasized the deeply graven lines of his face. He wore the full dress of a senior Templar knight, with the equal-armed black cross embroidered on his left breast, in the upper quadrant of the white surcoat bearing the long red cross on its front and rear. The chain mail of his hauberk and hood had the burnished look about them that Andre already knew to be the result of years spent in the desert dryness, being scrubbed and polished every day by blowing sand, and he carried a long-bladed sword, harnessed somehow to hang at his back, between his shoulders. In that single glance, he registered that Sinclair’s leggings were different, too, ankle length rather than calf length, and flared from the knee down so that they could be worn over heavy, thick-soled riding boots.
“Then I am glad I sent the message as I did,” he said in response, his wide smile still in place. “But it was nothing subtle. I merely thought you might remember the incident. Well met, Cousin. It’s been too long a time, too many years. And say hello to my friend of friends here, one of your fellow countrymen, Harry Douglas. Harry, this is my cousin, Sir Alexander Sinclair.” He extended his arm and Alec gripped it firmly, smiling with the astonishingly bright, warm eyes that Andre remembered well. But then Andre twisted his arm subtly and gripped his cousin’s hand in both his own, and beyond a momentary flicker of surprise, Alec betrayed no reaction, but returned the required counter grip of brotherhood. He then turned to Harry and shook with him, too, initiating the grip himself this time and receiving no reaction.
“Well met, Sir Harry Douglas,” he said. “Do you know what we are talking about, your friend here and I?” When Harry shook his head, Sinclair laughed, a single sound deep in his throat and swallowed before it could emerge completely. “That beak of his,” he said. “With the bend in it. ’Twas I did that for him, one summer afternoon when he was yet too young to do anything other than bleed. I turned quickly, to see what he was doing, and there he was, right at my back. The butt of the spear beneath my arm caught him from the side as I came around, and it mashed his nose across his face. It was a marked improvement, for even as a boy he was too comely, but I was tormented by guilt over it for at least an hour.” He paused dramatically. “Well, it felt like an hour. But in honesty it could have been less.” He stopped, then looked from one to the other of them, and his face grew sober.
“You will have heard, no doubt, about how changed I am since I returned from my captivity among the Infidel?”
He had spoken to both of them, but he was looking at Andre, and Andre returned the look openly, nodding. “Aye, we have heard some drolleries, but as you see, they did not deter us from coming to find you.”
“Aye, and had I known for certain it was you seeking me, I might not have brought you so far out into the desert for a meeting. But I have learned that very few men are worth trusting nowadays, and I was never the great truster of people in the first place. I thought, just from the way your message was worded, that you might be who you said you were, but I have heard nothing of you since last we met, more than twelve years ago. It was not inconceivable that you might have told the tale to someone, who then thought to use it as a lure to draw me out of hiding. And it was possible, too, that you were being used against me. But here you are in the flesh, a Knight of the Temple, and I can see you’re still the lad I knew and liked. How is your lady mother? I have never stopped being grateful to her for the way she took me in that year.”
“She died a few years ago, but she remembered you fondly. She would often talk of you, years after you had gone. But my father is well, and aged as he is, he is coming to Outremer with Richard, as his Master-at- Arms.” Before Alec could react, he asked, “Why would anyone seek to draw you out of hiding, Alec? Why are you
“Och, that’s a long story and for another time and place. But it grieves me to hear about your mother. Is that why you have been at such pains to find me? Has it to do with … family affairs?”
“Yes.”
“Friendly, I presume?”
“Oh yes, very much so. I have much to tell you. But before I tell you anything, you have to tell me how you did that, how you were able to creep up on us so quietly.”
“Quietly? The two of you were making so much noise I could have ridden up behind you with an entire troop without your hearing me.”
“For a few moments, perhaps, we were making noise, but where were you before that? Where did you come from?”
