Benedict smiled. 'I am willing to learn. A man's religion should not stand in the way of knowledge.'
Faisal nodded with cautious approval. 'When you are well, will you still pursue your intention?'
Benedict closed his eyes for a moment, mustering his strength. 'If I do not, then everything will have been wasted. No matter how much I want to crawl into a corner and cover my head, it is no respect to the dead to live a life of mourning. I will still go to Compostella, and fulfil her vow, and I will still find my horses.'
Faisal pursed his lips and nodded slowly. 'That is good,' he pronounced. After a pause, he added, 'When we found your wife, she was still clutching a reliquary in her hand. That too is in my coffer with your tunic. I know that you Christians set great store by the relics of their saints.'
'Some of us,' Benedict said, and his voice was tired and bitter. 'Gisele believed that they would take her unharmed through fire and flood. I was the unbeliever, and yet I survive. Perhaps, as they say, the devil looks after his own.'
CHAPTER 55
The interior of the tiny chapel glowed like a jewel. Slender wax tapers twinkled in pyramid clusters, lighting the cool stone darkness, giving the pilgrim a feeling of intimacy with God. Upon the altar, a cross of inlaid silver-gilt reflected the flames until its surface rippled like water. A statue of the Virgin Mary, blue-robed and serene, smiled down upon the worshippers. A plump Christ child sat in the crook of her arm and raised his painted wooden hand in blessing to all who knelt before him. At his mother's feet lay a treasure house of pilgrim offerings, from simple wreaths of flowers and cheap tokens in plaster and wood, to bracelets and crosses of silver and bronze inlaid with semiprecious stones, belts and cups, and even a carved cedarwood box containing myrrh.
Benedict knelt before the silver-gilt cross and the statue with its improbably coloured pink flesh. The stone floor was cold beneath his knees; the scar in his side was sore from the strain of riding and then kneeling. It was less than a week since he had risen from his sick bed, and he knew that he had pushed himself too fast and too far in his need to make atonement at the place where Gisele was buried.
He tried to concentrate on the chapel's gentle atmosphere rather than his own aches and pains, to project himself beyond the mire of the physical. Ave Maria, Regina caelorum, Beata Maria… The Virgin's smile filled his vision. He clutched Gisele's small reliquary in his hand, his thumb moving over its edges, the raised cold bumps of agate and emerald. He was going to leave her here, in this small, intimate hamlet on the road to Compostella. Every day pilgrims would come to pray. If her spirit chose to linger, she would not be lonely. He could not bear the thought of disinterring her body and bearing it home to England. Mile after mile it would drag like a lead shackle upon his conscience. Let her lie here, undisturbed. Benedicte.
Behind him, someone gently cleared his throat. Turning, he saw the soldier, Angel. Hat in hand, the man knelt before the altar, genuflected to the statue, then addressed Benedict in a hushed voice. 'I am sorry to disturb you, Seсor, but Lord Faisal says that if you have had enough time, we must be riding on to reach our destination before dark.'
Benedict looked down at the small box in his hand. 'I am ready,' he said, and rising stiffly to his feet, stepped forward to the statue and laid the reliquary at its feet. It belonged to Gisele, was no part of him. He remembered the look on her face when she first held it in her hands, the hunger; the wondering delight that such an object could actually exist and belong to her. He crossed himself once more, and then turned and walked out of the chapel without looking back. Nor did he visit the graveyard. What was there to see but a mound of earth?
Faisal was waiting for him, holding the bridle of a cream Andalusian gelding, a steady horse, almost beyond its prime and docile, suited to the needs of an invalid who was recently and inadvisedly out of his sick bed. The Moor's dark eyes were compassionate as he handed up the reins, but he did not speak. Neither did Benedict. His heart was too full; his throat ached, his eyes stung.
They rode in silence, the cream horse smoothly pacing the miles of dusty road, worn into a rut by the tramp of pilgrim sandals. The ache in Benedict's chest eased. He blinked the moisture from his eyes, and at length turned to his silent companion.
'I did not love her,' he said with quiet intensity, 'but she was a part of me, and now it is as though that part has been cut out.'
Faisal nodded compassionately, but recognising Benedict's need to talk, said nothing. A wound had to be cleansed before it would heal.
'We were betrothed when we were children. My father could see that I was better with horses than I was with barrels of wine, so he secured me a future with the best breeder of horses in Normandy, who was also his very good friend.' Benedict grimaced at the Moor. 'The trouble was that in his enthusiasm, he betrothed me to the wrong daughter.'
Faisal arched his brows. 'Your wife has a sister?'
'A half-sister. Gisele was the fruit of Rolf's legal marriage. Julitta was born to his Saxon mistress.'
'Mistress?' Faisal frowned, the word evading him.
'Concubine… although she was more like a wife.'
'Ah.'
Silence descended again and persisted for several minutes. Then Benedict drew a shuddering breath. To speak of Julitta was difficult, although she dwelt in his memory far more brightly than did Gisele. 'She used to follow me round when I was a boy, chattering nineteen to the dozen, being a nuisance as little girls are — I am four years older. On one occasion, I rescued her from a vicious gander, and from that day forth I became her hero. She was funny and high-spirited, always into mischief— and not much of that has changed,' he added wryly. 'I tolerated her, treated her like a little sister.'
Faisal sucked his teeth. 'You are going to tell me that this changed as you grew up.'
'There was a gap of many years when we did not see each other. Julitta's circumstances changed, and when I did meet her again, she was just turning into a woman, and I had been betrothed for more than eight years to Gisele. The gap had been too long; I could not see her as my sister any more.' His expression grew bleak as he told the silent Faisal the remainder of the tale. 'I thought that perhaps this journey with Gisele would bring us together as husband and wife… You can see where it brought us.'
Faisal looked thoughtful. 'To a crossroads,' he said, 'from which you go on alone with your burdens. The time will come when you will shed them, I think, but for now, you must bear them as best you can.'
'The wisdom of the prophet?' Benedict blinked moisture from his eyes. Self-pity would only weigh him down farther. He wondered if Faisal knew that in the Frankish lands, crossroads were places where the dead and the living were reputed to be able to meet.
'No, the words of a friend.'
Benedict managed a tight smile. 'Inshallah,' he said, murmuring the customary Arabic words of protection. 'If God wills it.'
'Inshallah,' Faisal responded gravely, his hands together in a gesture of prayer.
Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, better known as 'El Cid', looked every inch his title. He was tall, with the wide shoulders and narrow hips of an athlete. His tanned face was wide at the brow, with a long, powerful jaw, and prominent cheekbones. Swept-back silver-black hair was trimmed just above the collar of a crimson silk tunic crusted with gold embroidery. It was court dress and not at all customary. Faisal and Benedict could as easily have found him wearing a warrior's quilted gambeson and his swordbelt.
Benedict stared around the great hall as they were led by an equerry towards Lord Rodrigo. It was not so different from the hall at home; although larger and more sumptuous, The architecture was similar, but the painted designs on the plasterwork were bolder and bore a Moorish influence, and on the dais, a brightly coloured rug had been spread on top of the rushes.
Two white and gold Balearic hounds with broad hunting collars trotted up to Benedict, and sniffed him thoroughly. Faisal they accepted with wagging tails and a joyful dance of paws. Faisal laughed and fussed the dogs, sending them into wriggles of ecstasy.
The Lord Rodrigo glanced up from his business on the dais, saw the physician and, with a smile, beckoned him forward to the high table.
Benedict hung back out of courtesy, but Faisal took him by the arm and drew him to the dais. The dogs
