Green Jasper Read online

  green jasper

  K. M. GRANT

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Author’s Note

  List of Sources for Green Jasper

  Blaze of Silver Sneak Peak

  About the Author

  More praise for green jasper

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  For my father and my mother

  tenez le vraye

  Prologue

  Through chilly winter sunshine a young man galloped at speed along a track roughly following the curves of the river Danube. He rode at speed not because he was afraid, although he was in a foreign land and his dark features made him an object of curiosity in the Austrian villages through which he passed: He rode at speed because it eased the turmoil in his heart. Not yet twenty-one, his world had just been shattered for the second time. Saladin, the Saracen leader who had adopted him as a son after the death of his parents, had fallen ill and felt in his bones that his time on earth would be measured in months, not years. When he died, so the young man’s security and hopes would die, too. Saladin had told the young man as much before urging him, with what strength the bilious fever that blackened his blood allowed, not to wait until the end, but to take a horse now, find a ship, and flee from Palestine. “I have been listening to the chatter of the emirs through the ears of their servants,” he said. “You are not safe here. I wanted you for my heir, Kamil, but I am no longer strong enough to insist. The emirs are jealous of all you achieved during the crusade just past, and I can no longer protect you. Go, my precious son, and may Allah go with you.”

  Kamil had been appalled. Why should the jealousy of old men who preferred plotting to fighting cause him to leave behind everything familiar? His lean face hardened like rock. “I do not fear the emirs,” he said, but Saladin had caught his arm and, with a supreme effort, raised himself a fraction from his bed.

  “I have a task for you, Kamil, the last I shall ever demand,” he whispered. “Go to Richard, whom they call the ‘Lionheart.’ Tell him the war between us is over. Tell him, if he values what is right, to stay in his own country and never come to the Holy Land again. He will listen to you. Now embrace me once, then go. I command it.”

  Kamil’s embrace had been full of resentment, but the habit of obedience was strong. Nevertheless, three months later, as he rode along the river in search of the English king, he still felt angry. By fleeing, he was condemned always to live among enemies. In the Christian West he was despised for his Muslim religion. In the Muslim East he was hated for being the sultan’s favorite. He cursed Saladin, then felt overwhelmed with guilt at the memory of his sulky farewell because he knew that he would never again see the man who had been more than a father to him, never again feel the warmth of his approval, never again beat him at chess in the cool of the evening.

  Kamil leaned forward and urged his mount to go faster, but the horse was already doing his best. The young man shut his eyes and, just for a moment, tried to pretend that this gray plodder was the luminous red horse he had briefly captured from the Christians the previous year. But it was no good. All he had left of the best horse he had ever known were memories and the thick braid of russet mane hair, which now swung gently from the belt at his waist. The gray stumbled, and Kamil’s eyes were jolted open just in time to see a fox slope across the track and disappear into the frosty undergrowth. He allowed the gray to fall back into an easy canter, and his heart ached.

  From the very top of a castle built so high above the river that it could make even the bravest man dizzy, Richard the Lionheart, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and king of England, stared out over the forest and the distant hills. In other circumstances his practiced eye would have been searching for any signs of quarry for the hunt. But there was no hunting in these lands, for Richard, captured through treachery on his way back from crusade, was held against his will. He climbed the dreary steps to the top of the castle several times daily, not to spy, but because it was the only exercise he was allowed and he was fearful of growing fat during his enforced inactivity. He would not give his enemies that satisfaction. Leaning over the parapet, he followed the arc of an eagle as it flew across the setting sun. He did not spend time envying its freedom, for he knew, with unflagging certainty, that God would not desert one like himself who had fought on His behalf. One day he would be free, and his revenge would be deadly.

  Nevertheless, as he watched the eagle hover, Richard missed the tense folded weight of one of his own hawks on his arm and squinted down trying to see what had caught the creature’s eye. He was patient, and eventually something glinted through the leaves far below. He stood perfectly still, able to tell by the rhythm of the glint—flash, flash, flash—that it was a rider. He leaned farther forward, but as the rider came closer, he also realized with disappointment that it was not a Frankish or an English knight. It was clear from the fluid and easy way the man sat that he was a stranger to heavy armor and a stiff saddle. Why, thought Richard, narrowing his eyes to slits, he may be dressed like a German man of business, but the man’s a Saracen. He waited until he was sure that the rider was going to beg for entrance to the castle, then hurried down the steps and into the small rooms that composed his prison quarters.

  Kamil had learned at the Italian coast that Richard was a captive in Austria, and at first he had been glad, for it seemed to spell the end of Saladin’s mission. But on further inquiry it seemed that the king, like an animal in a zoo, was publicly displayed by his captors to any Christian dignitary who asked to see him. Whether this same privilege would apply to a Muslim, nobody could say, but Kamil felt honor bound to make an attempt. He met no resistance, and when he was eventually shown into the king’s presence, although he knew it was customary, he did not bow. “I am come from my master, Saladin,” he said. “He believes he will die soon.”

  Richard moved forward at once and fell to his knees. This was not what Kamil expected. “I should be grateful for the deliverance,” Richard said, crossing himself as Kamil stood unbending, “but we were worthy enemies, your master and I.” He prayed in silence as the rooks cawed outside, but got up before the recent creeping stiffness in his knees would have obliged him to use a chair as a prop.

  “This is how I now live,” he said, gesturing at his rooms, his eyes never leaving Kamil’s face. “I am surrounded by Christian traitors. My captors barter with me as if I were a slab of meat. My own brother John plots to take my English crown and all my French lands. There is nobody left I can trust.”

  Kamil’s expression remained blank.

  “We are not strangers, you and I,” Richard continued carefully. “We met in Palestine as enemies, but do you not agree that honor makes a bond between us?” When Kamil made no movement, Richard chose to take that for assent. “In memory of the suffering your master and I shared during the crusade and in the name of your God and mine, I want you now to do something for me, something I can trust to no other, since among my own people I do not know who is still loyal and who is not. Will you accept such a charge? Enemies we may be, but I think we can strike a bargain.”

  Kamil could see the small muscle in Richard’s cheek working through his beard. It was the only sign of weakness the king exhibited, and it prompted the young man to break his silence. “You trust a Muslim before any Christian? Your own people must be traitors, indeed.”

 
“Not all of them. The two young knights Gavin de Granville and his brother, Will Ravensgarth, whose red horse you seemed so taken with, they are to be trusted. I wish to send a letter to them to prove that I am still alive and will return. Will you take such a letter to England? I think they will be happy to receive it. And I daresay the red horse will be pleased to see you. There was something of a bond between you, was there not?”

  Richard watched Kamil blink and a shiver pass through him. It was cold, but both men knew it was not the cold that caused it.

  Kamil drew back. “I know nothing of England,” he said icily.

  “Oh,” said Richard, keeping his voice light. “It is a small sort of place. I have never been particularly fond of it, even though I was born there. But the de Granvilles are fine people, and I know I can put my faith in them. I believe they live somewhere southwest of the port of Whitby. A clever man like you could easily find them.” He walked with a soldier’s swift and economical gait to a table and sat down. Pushing quantities of ruined parchment out of the way, he took a clean vellum and a quill, speaking as he wrote. “I don’t think either of those de Granville boys can read, and if you can’t either”—he looked up, but Kamil gave nothing away—“I daresay some old monk will do it for a shilling or so.”

  The quill scratched. Richard rolled the parchment, lit a taper, and, with a disarming smile, attached his seal.

  Afterward, Kamil realized that just as he had never delivered Saladin’s plea, so he had never actually agreed to carry out Richard’s task. Nevertheless, the following day he found himself riding westward, traveling swiftly through the German empire and heading for the Flemish coast with the letter flattened against his breast. He hardly rested until he reached Brugge, for he seldom felt safe, but in Brugge he took a room for the night and allowed himself to sleep. His sleep was deep but full of disturbance, for he seemed to hear Saladin’s voice, not berating him for being a poor messenger, but repeating the red horse’s name. Hosanna! Hosanna! The echo sounded like a clarion, and suddenly the red horse was there, his sweet breath cool on Kamil’s cheek. Still sleeping, Kamil blindly stretched out his hand to touch the horse’s familiar star, that distinctive patch of white on his forehead, the only white mark in that deep red coat, but it faded just as he reached it. The young man woke with a cry, clutching at nothing. And suddenly he was sure that Saladin was at death’s door. That was the reason his voice had seemed so clear. His allotted time span was drawing rapidly to an end, and his last thoughts were of his adopted son.

  Kamil lay sleepless now, half wanting to throw Richard’s letter away and return home despite the sultan’s warnings. However, he did not. He had come too far. Instead, the next morning he went down to the waterside and made inquiries about a passage to England.

  1

  Hartslove, Valentine’s Day, 1193

  “If you don’t sit still, Miss Ellie, wedding day or no wedding day, I’ll be tempted to box your ears.”

  High up in the keep of Hartslove Castle, a fat old nurse was braiding Eleanor de Barre’s smooth hanks of auburn hair and threading them through with gold. It was early afternoon, but the candles were lit because it was snowing lightly and darkness had already begun to fall. Lurking by the door, two younger girls, identically dressed in long red tunics, were staring at the bride.

  Ellie colored slightly. “It’s only hair,” she said defiantly, and made a face into the tin disk that hung on the wall. Old Nurse opened her mouth, but something in Ellie’s face made her shut it again.

  One of the younger girls moved forward to help, but the other looked mutinous and kicked the door with the edge of her foot. Bang, bang, bang. The girl knew it irritated Ellie, but she didn’t care. Marissa cared about very little except her twin sister, Marie, and not always about her. It was just over a fortnight since they had been brought to Hartslove Castle in a cart and dumped, so it seemed to Marissa, because after their father was killed on crusade, Gavin de Granville was the only person who would agree to take them in. It was his duty, so she had heard him say. Fourteen-year-old girls could not be left to fend for themselves. Duty!

  She kicked the door harder. Bang, bang, BANG. If she were to be considered a duty, she was going to make the duty a hard one. Now Gavin was to marry this Ellie, who clearly resented having two children foisted on her and scarcely bothered to conceal the fact.

  Bang, BANG, BANG! Not that Marissa was jealous of Ellie. Who on earth could really want to marry a knight with one arm, even if he had lost his arm heroically on crusade? Ellie was welcome to Gavin. Yes, she was welcome to him, particularly since that got her out of the way of Gavin’s younger brother, Will.

  At the thought of Will, Marissa temporarily suspended the banging and, quite without thinking, smoothed her own hair. Old Nurse threw her a glance—which was a mistake, because Marissa immediately dropped her hands and began banging again. Will had been nice to them, when, that is, he could be dragged away from that red horse, with whom he seemed unhealthily obsessed. Horses were just animals—animals Marissa hated. She kicked the door harder than ever.

  Will had only stayed a day before going off to take possession of lands in the west given to him by King Richard, along with the title Earl of Ravensgarth. After he had gone, Marissa had written, in the careful hand her mother had taught her before she died, “MARISSA, COUNTESS OF RAVENSGARTH” on a vellum piece, leaving it purposefully out for Ellie to see. She knew Ellie had burned it, pushing every piece into the flames with a poker. This gave Marissa particular pleasure. Ellie was marrying Gavin. She couldn’t have Will, too. BANG, BANG, BANG, and a smile of triumph.

  Irritated beyond endurance, Ellie turned round, causing Old Nurse to huff like a hippopotamus as her neat handiwork was whipped out of her hands. “Why don’t you both go and find some mistletoe or something to thread through the dogs’ collars?” Ellie tried to make it a suggestion rather than an order. “You’ll find piles of greenery in the great hall. The dogs should look nice today as well as us.”

  Marissa gave her an insolent stare, which Ellie, forgetting herself entirely, returned in kind. “Come, Marie,” Marissa said, glaring at Old Nurse. “They don’t want us here.” Then giving the door a final kick, she stamped unevenly down the stone steps.

  Marissa had been lame for about three years, and when the sleeve of her dress fell back, it revealed that she also had two red and unsightly marks on her left forearm. Just before the twins’ father, Sir Hugh de Neville, left on crusade, he had come to visit the steward’s house in which his children were lodging. He was riding a new Spanish stallion purchased for the journey, and while Marie smiled and nodded but kept her distance, for she was nervous of all animals except kittens, Marissa had been thrilled, desperate to show her father how brave she was. At that time horses held no fear for her. She had laughed with delight when Sir Hugh tossed her into the saddle, in front of him, and rode around the water meadows. If he went a little fast, Marissa was not going to complain. She basked in his adulation, while Marie was ignored.

  But the evening before Sir Hugh was to depart, Marissa had gone back into the stables to give the stallion an apple. The horse was restive, but she fearlessly climbed onto the manger and held out her hand. He backed away and stamped his foot. Marissa leaned a little farther, then lost her balance and, clutching wildly at the animal’s tethering rope, fell into the straw. Terrified and angry, the stallion reared and plunged down to attack. By the time his teeth had buried themselves in Marissa’s arm and his weight had crushed her leg, the child was almost unconscious, and when the stable boys finally severed the rope and beat the stallion off, Marissa was given up for dead.

  She was not dead, however. Flung roughly onto a bed by her father, she came to just long enough to hear his diatribe about her stupidity and how the horse, the most expensive animal he had ever bought, had injured his knee. He had not the money, he said, to pay for a surgeon for his daughter as well as medicines for his Spanish stallion, and he was clear about which creature was the m
ore important. He could not replace his horse, but Marissa was a girl—a twin girl at that—so her loss would be no loss. As Marie cowered behind a chair, too frightened of her father to plead on her sister’s behalf, the steward was told to leave Marissa to die. Without a further word Hugh stormed off, cursing the day his daughters had been born. It was the last time they ever saw him.

  Since then, great, hovering hooves and bared teeth featured almost nightly in Marissa’s dreams, and every day she cursed first her father; then the steward, who had spent much of his own gold on a surgeon; then the steward’s wife, who had nursed her so carefully. She cursed Marie, whose gentle hands had eased her fever with cold cloths and tears. She cursed the local apothecary, who had taught her to swim so that her leg might not wither through lack of exercise, and most of all Marissa cursed herself.

  Marie could hear curses echoing in the stairway now, and had Marissa not been adamant that Ellie was to know nothing of the accident, Marie would have explained everything so that Ellie could understand. But Marissa had made her promise, and anyway, this was not the time. Marie could see that Ellie wanted to be rid of her, too, so she just said shyly, “I think you look beautiful. Please don’t mind Marissa.” Then she fled.

  Ellie turned back to her mirror and felt ashamed. It was not the twins’ fault that they were here. “Everything is changed,” she said to Old Nurse plaintively. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” And she burst into tears.

  Old Nurse shifted her great weight, clucking with dismay. She patted Ellie’s shoulder, then settled her fat knees a little wider apart and picked up the hank of hair once again. “There, dearie,” she said. “There. Not on your wedding day. There’s all the guests down in the hall, and Master Will will be here soon. He’ll want to see you happy. With Hosanna in his old stable for at least a night or two, it will seem quite like old times, or at least the best that can be done.”