Chapter Seventeen ~ In a Lover's Arms

In her famous account, The Alexiad, the Emperor's daughter, Anna Comnena, would record Saint Gilles's return to Constantinople and his reception by the Emperor, who she said held great affection for the Count of Toulouse.

As for Saint Gilles and Tzitas, they made their way to Constantinople with a few surviving knights. The Emperor received them there and after presenting generous gifts of money and allowing them to rest, he asked them where they would like to go for the future. They chose Jerusalem. He lavished more presents on them, and sent them off by sea, just as they had wanted. Saint Gilles left Constantinople also, to join his own army at Tripolis, which he was anxiously seeking to capture. (Book XI, Page 320)

In late September of 1101 what was left of the pilgrims crossed the Bosporus and limped into the city of Constantinople. The leaders found at Raymond's villa that his door was not open to them. Further, the Basileus was far too busy to grant any of them an audience.

Once within the walls of the city, Albrecht and Elisabeth split from the main body of knights and followed familiar streets to the villa of Andronikos Comnenus. They found the entire household waiting within the courtyard. When Andronikos saw Albrecht slumped in his saddle, feverish, he cried out in alarm, and directed servants to help the squire down and carry him to his own massive chambers.

Elisabeth saw none of this, for next to Andronikos stood a young woman with honey-colored eyes holding a small boy. Tacetin wriggled out of his mother's arms and pushed his way through the servants to dash to Elisabeth. "Elli!" he cried.

Elisabeth, who had quickly dismounted, knelt in the courtyard with her arms wide, folding the child in them when he threw himself against her chest. She felt moisture on the boy's dark curls and realized it came from her own tears. She took his head between her hands and kissed his face repeatedly.

"Elisabeth," a velvety voice said quietly. She looked up into Maliha's precious eyes. Stiffly she dragged herself to a standing position and reached to take her lover in her arms. Maliha leaned into her, laid her cheek on Elisabeth's shoulder, and Elisabeth held her tight, savoring the feel and scent of her. When they looked again into each other's faces, each was wet with tears. They tilted their faces to each other and their lips met and held in a long kiss.

Like any soldier who returns from the horror of war, Elisabeth had no interest in delaying time alone with her beloved. She followed Maliha to their shared chamber. She saw immediately that Maliha had been living in it. She waited as Maliha asked his nurse to take Tacetin. When they were alone, she took Maliha's face in her hands gently and asked, "He has a nurse now?"

Honey eyes sparkled into hers. "Master has been most generous. There is so much to tell. So much to ask . . . " Elisabeth's lips cut off her words, hard and hungry on hers. Maliha noticed how dry and cracked they were. She relaxed in the pilgrim knight's embrace. She felt her start to move them both to the bed. When the side of the bed hit the back of her knees, she went limp, letting Elisabeth take her weight and lower her gently onto the bed. She pulled her legs up to lie flat, and felt the delicious weight of the woman atop her.

Elisabeth groaned and got to her knees next to Maliha's form. "I have not bathed in months," she sighed, pulling her gorget off, then her mail shirt up to wriggle out of it.

Maliha shared the task by unlacing the mail britches and pushing them down. "I want you however you are, my love."

Elisabeth knelt over her, eyes again brimming with tears. "It was horrible, so horrible I want to forget it."

"Let me help you try," the dark-haired woman begged.

Elisabeth sank down on top of her, pressed her lips to her throat and lost herself in the healing warmth of making love to Maliha.

Later while servants carried in the tub and hot water, the steward came to the door and bowed. "My master asks if the ladies would be so kind as to join him for a light meal this evening in his chambers."

Maliha glanced at Elisabeth and saw the surprise in her eyes. The German woman mouthed, "Ladies?" and Maliha gave her a mischievous grin.

"Lady Elisabeth and I would very much like that," she said to the servant, who bowed and backed out of the chamber.

"Did you tell him, my sweet one?" Elisabeth asked.

Maliha helped her slip the robe off her shoulders, tut-tutted at bruises and abrasions on her arms and back, and helped her into the tub.

"Get in with me," Elisabeth asked.

Maliha stripped her own robe off and as she put one leg and then the other into the tub she said, "No, I wanted to, but I thought it best to wait to ask you what you wanted." She settled between Elisabeth's legs, her back against her breasts. Elisabeth put her arms around her and began to stroke Maliha's full breasts, now soapy and oily, and to tweak her nipples. Maliha wriggled with pleasure. She reached up to pull Elisabeth's head down for a soul-searching kiss.

"Then who told him?" Elisabeth spoke into her ear.

"There was a man who came with another party of pilgrims, oh, yes, there, that is delicious." She sighed deeply while her lover's lips and tongue explored her neck and ear. "I can't tell you about it if you keep doing that."

"Do you want me to stop?" Elisabeth said, not stopping.

"No," Maliha moaned and twisted in the tub so that she lay on her side in Elisabeth's arms. She presented her lips for more kisses. Their tongues reached into each other's mouths to play together.

After making love in the bath, they fell deeply asleep in each other's arms, while the sounds of servants quietly removing the bath and cleaning up the water that splashed everywhere did not register on them at all.

Elisabeth found two sets of clothing set out by the servants when they awoke from their contented nap. She lifted the dress and held it to Maliha. "This is yours."

Maliha shook her head. "They are both yours, my love. Andronikos is giving you the choice."

"To wear men's or women's clothes?" she asked sardonically.

"No, to choose how you, a woman, wish to dress."

Elisabeth looked at her wonderingly, smiled and chose the britches, tunic and coat. Before they went out the door, she strapped on her sword belt. She put a palm on the small of Maliha's back and led her to Andronikos's rooms.

Ushered all the way into Andronikos's private bedchamber, the two women saw that Albrecht was installed in the master's bed, a physician putting the final touches on a bandage on his leg. The aroma of salves and poultices tinged the air already redolent with the spices used in food. Albrecht smiled sheepishly from where he sat propped up on silken pillows. Andronikos sat on the bed holding the man's hand. He looked up as his guests entered. "My ladies, welcome! I thank you for agreeing to have dinner with us."

Elisabeth, with a fond glance at her squire, bowed graciously, "It is generous of you, my lord. It seems I have much to be grateful to you for." She glanced at Maliha. "You have taken good care of my family."

Maliha's face shot to hers, her lips forming a tiny O. Tears sprang to her eyes. "Oh, Elli," she sighed.

Andronikos beamed at them both. He looked over at Albrecht, whose loving face moved between him and the women.

Elisabeth took Maliha's hand. "Come meet Albrecht more formally," she invited. She led Maliha to the bed, where she sat on the edge and drew her beloved to sit on her other side. "Albrecht, my friend, this is my darling Maliha. We have a son, Tacetin."

The squire laughed. "I've met Tacetin. He came to show me his kitten."

Maliha laughed delightedly. "Papaki?"

"Yes, that means duckling, though why he named a kitten after a duck I don't know."

Andronikos sat on the other side of the bed and held Albrecht's hand, massaging its back with his thumb. "I can tell you that," he smiled. "Tacetin remembered your shield with the upside-down duck. He noticed how the kitten liked to lie on its back and play with his fingers."

"How is your wound?" Elisabeth asked after she stopped laughing.

Andronikos replied for him, "Now that he had the loving care he needs, it will be well. I shall see to that myself." He leaned in and shared a light kiss with Albrecht.

The servants brought in low tables and placed them near the bed. "I do not want my Albertos to feel left out, so if you do not mind, we shall sup at his bedside," he explained.

Over their supper Andronikos brought Elisabeth up on what had transpired while the pilgrims were gone. "You had hardly left Nicomedia when another party of pilgrims arrived from Nevers."

"Count William?" she asked, looking up from picking a delicacy from a polished teak tray.

He nodded, "Just as we were clearing up the mess in the city from your lot." He winked at Albrecht, whom he fed from his own fingers. "When the Nivenais came in such spectacular order, the city wished they have arrived first. They did not linger, anxious to join your Stephen of Burgundy and the rest of you and set out immediately for Ancyra."

"So the news had reached you of our conquest?"

Andronikos hid a wry smile behind his hand. "Of an unguarded stronghold?"

She frowned. "There was battle. I was in it."

Maliha gave a small cry and touched her arm. She patted it and murmured reassurances.

"She got her first kill in battle then," Albrecht put in. "Gods, but it's hard to get used to saying 'she' again."

"Do not get in the habit, my friend. I shall have to go back to being Elias soon." Her face was grim.

Maliha squeezed her arm. "Why? Can you not stay here?"

"I made a pledge. For my father's and Elias's sake. To pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. And to free the Holy Land from the Paynim." She froze, and looked at Maliha. "I am sorry. I do not mean you."

Andronikos looked from hers to Maliha's face. "I should think you would have had enough of fighting for pilgrims like Toulouse, Blois and the others, all such true Christians."

Her brows furrowed with the pain of sudden biting memories. "I still have to go to Jerusalem. I have to learn what happened to my father. Then I have . . . nowhere to go."

Andronikos cleared his throat. "I was hoping you would stay and be the captain of my personal guard."

Elisabeth looked up sharply. "You have no guard, my lord."

"I think it is high time I got one. And it would suit my sense of the dramatic to have one with a woman as their captain. The Basileus has his Verangians. I will have my Amazon."

"Master says we will go to Jerusalem later, when all this fighting has died down. On his ship," Maliha urged hopefully.

Elisabeth looked at Andronikos, then back at Maliha. She put her arm around the woman's shoulders and squeezed. "So I could live as I am, a woman, but a knight? What about Albrecht? Will he still be my squire? Would you want to squire a woman?" She looked up at his face.

Before Albrecht could answer, Andronikos said, "Albertos need never fight or wield a sword again. He will be my beloved companion for as long as he wants to be. He may do whatever he wishes in the world. I shall see to that."

The two men locked eyes. Albrecht's were full of wonder. "You love me that much?" he said hoarsely.

Andronikos gazed back. "With all my heart and soul." They continued to gaze.

"Oh Andronikos, ich liebe dich," Albrecht breathed in German. "I did not know I could love again, but I do."

The Greek eunuch did not need a translation.

Sharing a soft kiss of their own, Elisabeth asked Maliha, "Was the man you spoke of with the Nivenais? I do not understand. How would he know I was a woman?"

"No, he came with the last party. A fellow named . . . was it Hans?"

Andronikos nodded in response to her quizzical look.

"Hans!" Elisabeth and her former squire said together.

"How did he come to be here? If it is the same man, we left him in Bavaria."

Andronikos supplied the information. "He was my guest here, as squire to one of the lords traveling with Welf. That is your king, is it not? Or Duke?"

Blood draining from her face, Elisabeth asked, "That lord was not named Reinhardt by any chance, was he?"

Andronikos shook his head. "No, it was another Conrad. But he told us about Reinhardt. And he told us . . . about you."

Maliha chuckled. "Not quite the same story you would tell us, my love."

Albrecht laughed suddenly from the bed. "No, I should not think so! He thought Elisabeth and I were lovers running off together." He looked at the eunuch. "I am so glad that I . . . well . . . we . . . " He stopped, smiled sheepishly, and went on. "I am glad you had reason to doubt that I should prefer a woman, my lord."

"But how did you know that the woman Albrecht left with was the knight he arrived with?" Elisabeth pursued.

"We kept our mouths shut and our ears open. Sooner or later he mentioned your brother, Elias, of his passing, of the missing armor."

She laughed. "He probably did not mention the missing gold."

Maliha and her master exchanged looks. "He said you promised him treasure, but when he went to get it, your Reinhardt followed him and claimed it for his own."

She shuddered. "Please do not call him 'my Reinhardt.' Well, I am sorry. If he is still in Byzantium, I will try to make it up to him."

Andronikos shook his head. "He is gone. He was with Welf, as I said, as well as a most charming man, a troubadour of some renown, Duke William of Aquitaine. What a talented lot the nobles of that land are. And a most extraordinary woman, Ida, the Dowager Margravina of Austria."

Elisabeth sat up so quickly she knocked her goblet of wine from its perch on her knee. "Ida? She was here?"

Maliha looked concerned and leaned to mop at the dark red liquid soaking into the covers of the bed. "Do you know her?"

"An extraordinarily beautiful woman." Andronikos added, "if you go in for that sort of thing." He winked at Albrecht. But as quickly he shot his attention to Elisabeth. She had stood and was stepping around the low table. "What is amiss?"

Elisabeth cried as she darted out of the chamber, "Ida. She and her party are almost certainly headed into disaster! I have to stop them!"

It felt strange riding alone along the roads to Ancyra she had traversed months ago with the entire pilgrim force. It chilled her to think that only a handful, no more than six score, of the men, women and children who had marched, laughed, argued, sung, complained, and breathed would ever see their homelands again.

At her first stop to beg water and fodder for Gauner she learned from wary villagers that not only had the Nivenais force passed through, taking what little food the natives of the region had left, but had passed through again heading back the same direction. The peasants did not know why or where they had gone. She knew she must retrace her steps and learn where they had turned off. The only thing she was confident about was that they had not returned to Constantinople or even Nicomedia. She would have intercepted them if they had.

She quizzed the peasants and the people further and learned that no second group had passed through the village. So Ida's party clearly had learned what she had not and followed the Nivenais along the same course. If she had stopped sooner for provender, she would not have wasted time in her pursuit.

Retracing her steps back through what was now well within Byzantine territory, she finally learned that the Nivenais had taken the road south to Dorylaeum. The later party had followed. Turning her own mount in the same direction, she worried that the two parties, almost six weeks separated, would make easy targets for the strengthening armies of Kilij Arslan and his now staunch ally, Malik Ghazi. She could only pray they had met somewhere along the way, at Dorylaeum or Konya, and combined forces.

She thought about what Andronikos had told her. The body of pilgrims, which included the Margravina, had arrived in Constantinople not long after the Nivenais left to overtake her own force. The last group had not hurried after them. Petty jealousies played a part in this decision as they had with Raymond, Blois, and the others. William hated Count Raymond of Toulouse, for his duchess was the daughter of Raymond's older brother and should have inherited the county. Duke Welf was a bitter rival of the Holy Roman Emperor and had no wish to ally himself with the Constable of the Emperor, Conrad. So while the Count of Nevers made haste on the journey where he hoped to combine forces with Raymond and his pilgrims, the Aquitainians and Bavarians had rested in the area across the Bosporus from Constantinople and when they left headed to Dorylaeum to make their way south to Syria and Palestine. One party, including a man named Eckhardt who was chronicling the pilgrimage, took ship directly to Palestine.

So, she realized, the Nivenais must have arrived at Ancyra, expecting to be directed to Raymond's location, but no one there knew anything about his whereabouts. Elisabeth thought it was suspicious that Count William did not even learn the direction they had taken only a few weeks before. The Nivenais must have assumed that the first group of pilgrims pursued their original course, south to Konya, so they headed in that direction as well, taking a roundabout path. She could only hope that their backtracking allowed the last group to catch up and combine forces. The last was well equipped, much better than the Nivenais, but neither group could face what Elisabeth had seen. The Seljuk Turk and Danishmend armies were greater still.

She urged Gauner on and on, but finally realized he could not keep up the pace forever. He may be a destrier, a huge stout horse, but his very size could be his downfall if ridden too hard, too fast and too long. Killing her horse would not help her desperate pursuit. She decided to pause in a small village whose church tower she had spied, to rest Gauner and herself and to get whatever tidings she could.

In the small town she found more wary people who only agreed to feed and care for Gauner for the silver she proffered. In her headlong rush to follow Ida, Andronikos had forced on her a small purse that clinked with coins. "I am indebted to you so much already," she protested.

He shook his head. "You brought Albertos. I could never repay you for that."

She accepted the purse, and all along the way she was glad she had had coin to wrest what little information the people could offer.

She tried to ask the man who led Gauner off about the pilgrim armies who should have passed by here. The man would not speak, but simply gestured to the small church in the center of the village.

"What? I know they were Christians. But did they pass here?"

He pointed more insistently. She followed his gaze and shrugged. She could do with a little prayer even if it wasn't in the Latin tradition.

As she approached the church she noticed a man in clothing more like her own than the locals'. She peered through the glare of midday sun. She was startled when a voice called out in German, "Elias? It cannot be! You are dead!"

It was Hans, the man who had helped her and Albrecht escape Reinhardt's clutches. He sat on the step of the church, his right leg straight out in front of him, splinted and bandaged.

"Hans, how did you get here? What happened to you?"

The man cocked his head, recognizing his own dialect of German. He stared into Elisabeth's face, searching it for some explanation. All at once his eyes grew round. "My God, I cannot believe it. It's you. It's the Lady Elisabeth. A knight?" He stared her up and down, then asked, "Do you have any food?"

She sat down next to him and placed her helm on the step on her other side. "I do," she affirmed and untied the leather bag she had at her belt, pulled it open and reached in. She brought out a small packet wrapped in oiled cloth, opened it and offered its contents to Hans. He snatched the whole packet from her hands and started to shove food into his mouth without pausing to identify it.

"Wine?" he said through a full mouth.

"Water," she said simply, "and lucky to have that."

He shrugged. "Water I can get. Although . . . " He looked at her pleading, "not until they get around to me. Can you give me some of yours?"

She pulled the wineskin from her belt and gave it to him. "It's not good water. Probably no better than they have here."

Elisabeth tried to question him while he polished off most of her food. He waved her questions away, indicating that he would eat first. Popping one last morsel into his mouth, he said around it, "I'm with the Duke's army . . . or I was. Duke Welf. Reinhardt tossed me out when . . . " He looked up at her angrily. "Now that reminds me, you were supposed to reward me for . . . "

She put up a hand. "I know all about it. Reinhardt caught you looking for the gold I told you about. I am sorry. I will make it up to you somehow. I promise."

"How do you . . . where did you . . . where is Albrecht?" he finally finished.

"Constantinople. He was wounded at Merzifon."

"Merzifon?" Hans asked.

"You don't know about Merzifon? Well, I suppose you wouldn't. Never mind. What happened to you?" She indicated his leg.

Hans looked down at it. "My horse fell on me. They had to leave me here, God rot them." He looked back at her. "Reinhardt was just as glad when you disappeared. He was your husband and that meant the estates were his free and clear. Everyone assumed you and Albrecht had gone away to stay. He had men looking for you for some time, secretly, so he could kill you both and make sure you did not suddenly turn up. He was suspicious of me, so he did not send me. He did find something out, though. One of his men came back from the Danube with some news that made him laugh. No one told me what it was."

Elisabeth grinned sardonically. "Then he got what he wanted. He never wanted me, not as a wife anyway." She shrugged, "So be it. What about my father? Has there been any word?"

He considered her speculatively. "So you have not found him. That was the one thing Reinhardt was most uneasy about. He did not want to get your estates only to learn that you never had inherited them in the first place." He shrugged. "The only thing we ever heard about your father and his party was that they traveled farther west and get a ship at Marseilles. Don't remember why."

That was the first real intelligence she had gotten about her father after all this time. She realized that his heading west and sailing from Marseilles was the reason she had never learned anything. They had taken entirely different paths. Who could know what happened after that?

"I have to take a piss. Will you help me get up?" Hans asked. She willingly put her arm under his and helped him stand. Acting as a crutch, she helped him a short distance away.

He looked at her crotch. "How do you manage . . . ?" he began.

"I manage. Can you?" She gave him a challenging look.

"You've changed," he said. As he relieved himself, she looked away and chuckled.

"You don't know the half of it."

He pointed to a bench under a tree and said, "Let's get some shade. This fucking place is like an oven. Or Hell."

In the little shade they shared their stories. Elisabeth refused to be led into talking about her transformation. Hans finally stopped trying. She also kept her details of the massacre at Merzifon to a minimum.

He told her that after Reinhardt had dismissed him, he had found a place as a squire to the Ritter Conrad von Niederhof who was serving as a knight in Duke Welf's army. The old Duke had had an illustrious career as a war leader, but now he wanted to end his days fighting the heathens in the Holy Land. His party joined the Duke of Aquitaine's and another commander named Hugh de Vermandois. Yes, Ida was with them. She brought along the Archbishop of Salzburg as her chaperone." The last word was spoken bitterly.

Hans made no pretense of his opinion of that. "She's drop-dead gorgeous, especially for an old woman, but she'd no business coming on pilgrimage with us. She's been trouble every step of the way."

Elisabeth was sitting forward with her forearms on her thighs, staring at the dry ground between her feet. "I heard you were all trouble."

Andronikos had had time only to tell her of the arrival of the Aquitainian-Bavarian pilgrims, how they were out of control throughout Byzantine territory and how Alexios had dispatched Pecheneg mercenaries to escort them directly to Nicomedia. The pilgrims engaged the Pecheneg in battle. It was only when the Dukes of Aquitaine and Bavaria swore to the Basileus that they would keep the unruly force in control that he let them proceed. Most were escorted to Nicomedia, but some of the commanders stayed in Constantinople. I got a sweet billet with some no-balls high mucky-muck."

Elisabeth, who had said nothing about her own billet in Constantinople, let the insult to her benefactor go. "So when did they move on? The pilgrims you came with, I mean."

"They were heading to Konya. Thought that Count William would have taken it by then. We were getting low on everything. The Nivenais bastards already got all the food there was to get out of these pigs." He indicated the people who moved about on their daily chores around him.

"How long ago?" she insisted.

"A fortnight maybe? The days go by much the same here. You are going to take me with you, aren't you?" His eyes begged her to say yes.

She looked at him. "I cannot now, but I promise I will come back for you. I owe you at least that."

He looked resigned. "You promise," he said tentatively.

"On my honor as a knight of the Cross." She made the sign on her breast, then looked away to hide the look that crossed her features when she realized how little honor she had seen among those knights.

His look was sardonic, but he kept his thoughts about her knighthood to himself.

Elisabeth arrived at Konya to find it all but deserted. From a mullah in a nearby village she learned that indeed Count William of Nevers had tried to take the city, but failed and moved on. His eyes burned with pride as he recounted that tale, but they grew dismal when he went on. "Then we saw the bigger army. Most of us fled. But we took all the food with us. And everything else we could carry. When they got here the place was of no use to them, the Infidels. They got a taste of what Allah, may he be praised, has in store for them. For you as well, dog of a Christian."

Elisabeth thought she ought to get away from here quickly, but she ventured, "Where did they go?"

The man leered with savage delight. "Herakleia." The knife-edge sharpness of his words chilled her to the core.

Astonished that she had made it out of even a deserted town alive, the animosity toward pilgrims understandably great, she pressed on. Soon she discovered that every well the road passed was blocked. The villages were deserted and emptied of anything she or Gauner could eat. She was sorry she had been so generous with Hans. She pressed on.

Forced to camp without a fire, she rode on. Finally she saw before her some hills rising about the plain. The road, it appeared, wound its way between them. A presentiment made a chill go down her perspiring back even before she saw the swirling black shapes in the sky. She knew as she rode closer that the birds were carrion birds as she had feared. There was an untold number. She urged the already dehydrated Gauner to a faster pace. She kept her eyes dead ahead, waiting to see the first body, not remembering to protect herself from ambush.

As she rode into the defile she started to see them. First a score, then a hundred, then innumerable corpses, most already picked at by the carrion birds. She scanned the bodies as the tears ran down her cheeks, making the stifling heat under her helm humid and even more unbearable. Men, all men. No women. She saw a long narrow pool of water ahead alongside the road in a small widening of the track between the hills. There were so many bodies next to it she almost could not see the water. But Gauner saw it and pulled forward. She dragged back the reins to keep him in check.

Elisabeth scanned the space before her. She saw it rising above the barrier of the bodies. Some sort of box. Wood with cloth of some sort. A litter! She leapt from Gauner's back and ran to the litter. "Ida, Ida!" she called. "Where are you?" She dashed about the litter looking at the bodies. She caught sight of what looked like a woman's cloak. The woman was mostly hidden under other bodies, but she managed to pull her out and turn her over. It was one of Ida's serving-women, Elisabeth saw. And she was quite dead, though how she had died Elisabeth could not tell. She was bloody enough that if there was a wound, it would require a search to find it. She abandoned the woman's corpse and continued her search.

She had the impression that Gauner, no longer restrained, had found his way through and over the bodies to the pool and was undoubtedly drinking his fill. Her own throat was parched, but she would not leave off her search.

She heard a small noise from the direction of the overturned litter. It came again, a faint moan. She dashed to the litter and lifted it to look under. There indeed was a body, a woman's body. The woman's clothing was soaked with blood and caked with dirt, nevertheless were clearly of rich quality. Her face was . . . it hardly looked like a face. She knelt by the woman and lifted her upper body in her arms. "Your Grace?"

The moaning stopped. "Who ith that?" she lisped. The voice was Ida's, recognizable in spite of its hoarseness.

"It's Elias, your Grace. You met me in Mölk. Remember, we talked about my late sister."

One sunburned arm lifted so that the woman could shade the one eye that could open. Half of her face was crushed, the ridge around that eye, her cheekbone and the jaw on that side bloody and disfigured. It was a miracle she could talk at all. It was a miracle she was alive at all. "I remember. The knight who wath tho thmitten with me."

Elisabeth laughed. "That's the one. What happened to you?"

The woman sighed. "A horthe'th hoof happened to me." She had fallen from the litter when her bearers dropped it, rolled out of it and under one of the Turk's horses. Had it been a destrier like Gauner she would not be alive.

The Margravina was struggling to rise. "Wait, your Grace. Let me get my horse. I'll get you on it somehow and then we can ride back for help." She looked about. "Is everyone dead? What about the Nivenais?"

"I don't know. We got here and the men went mad. They thaw the pool. But it wath poithoned."

Elisabeth looked down at her. "Poisoned? Oh sweet Jesu!"

She leapt to her feet and ran toward the pool, jumping over and sidestepping corpses of both pilgrims and Turks. She rounded the tallest pile of bodies and found Gauner. He was unsteady on his feet. Foam spewed from his muzzle. His legs seemed to be buckling. He collapsed and fell, landing hard in the water, making it splash up away from where Elisabeth approached. The horse lay with his head half in the water, breathing heavily, erratically. Being careful not to touch the water, she knelt by him and leaned out to stroke his neck. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She sobbed. "Oh Gauner!" The horse rolled its eye at her. Its confusion and pain were evident. Wiping her sweaty forehead on her arm, where the mail was blistering hot, she reached for her dagger. In one quick movement she put her destrier out of his misery. "Goodbye, old friend. Tell Elias I am so sorry when you see him."

She knelt, still sobbing, until she remembered Ida. She got to her feet and gave the horse one last look, realizing with regret that her saddlebag was underneath him. She ran back unsteadily to the overturned litter. Ida's eyes were closed and she hardly seemed to breathe. "Oh no," Elisabeth moaned, kneeling by the woman. She put her ear to the Margravina's breast over her heart. She remembered bitterly longing to rest her cheek there, what was it, centuries ago? The heart was still beating.

Elisabeth stood and looked around again. For the first time she noticed the stench. Carrion birds eyed her hostilely. She saw the poles that lifted the litter and went to one and pulled it out. It was slow work, and she thought she might pass out from the heat and the effort. Somehow she got both poles free. She reached for the wineskin at her belt and remembered Ida's parched lips. She dashed back to the woman, who now lay under some cloth Elisabeth had torn from the litter curtains. She knelt and lifted the woman's head. She tried to trickle some water in her mouth, but it just ran over her teeth and lips and off her jaw into the dirt. There was almost none left. She left the skin by Ida and went back to her task.

Stripping the tunics off two bodies, the chain mail already stripped from all of the knights and soldiers, she went back to the poles. She slipped the ends into the sleeves of the first shirt, then the other ends into the sleeves of the other. She used the laces that held up britches or chain mail leggings to tie the two together at their hems. It was a stretcher of sorts, but what else was there to be done?

She returned to Ida and gently lifted her in her arms. She was so light! Ida was a petite woman, but Elisabeth realized that much of the impression was due to her own developed muscles. Life as a knight, in fact if not by right of chivalry, had made her immensely strong. She would need that strength now, if she was to walk back to Byzantine territory dragging the stretcher with the Margravina behind her. She settled the woman on the stretcher, then went to retrieve her wineskin. As she did she scanned the bodies for the garb of noblemen. She saw knights, but no one was more richly dressed. Had these men, nobleman and commanders, deserted their armies like Raymond, Conrad, the Lombard noblemen, the two Stephens and Odo had? Leaving Ida to suffer and die or be taken and forced into slavery? Her anger was so intense, her head throbbed so painfully, she was forced to lean forward and retch out what little was in her stomach. No one looked like a high churchman either. So Ida's own elected Archbishop had abandoned her too.

When she got back to the makeshift stretcher, she saw that Ida was moving under the cloths that shaded her. She parted them to see the blue, uninjured eye peering out at her. "Where'th you horth?"

"Dead. Poisoned. But I made this stretcher. I will pull it behind me. We will get back to safety." She pulled out the wineskin, propped up the woman's head and poured the last few sips of the water in her mouth. Ida sputtered but swallowed it all.

"God bleth you, my champion," Ida croaked.

In spite of the horror of their situation, Elisabeth's heart thrilled at the words.

Elisabeth wrapped a length of cloth around her head to shade it from the sun. She strode forth into the hills with one pole of the stretcher in each hand. Her elbows were bent so she could press her arms in to help take the weight. It was negligible now, but she knew it would soon seem heavier. Her helm was back at the scene of the massacre with the rest of her armor. She could not carry it or wear it. All she had now was her sword belt, sword and dagger. And the Margravina of Austria.

Elisabeth had always had an instinctual sense of direction. Glancing at the path of the sun as she walked, she made her way west by northwest, hoping to intersect the road she had traveled before. She knew the chances of survival were minuscule, but all she could do was persevere. She realized soon enough that trying this in the heat of the sun was insane, so she found a place where a rocky outcrop created shade and dragged the stretcher toward it. "We'll continue when it gets dark. It's October now, I think, so it should not be long."

"I am tho thirthty," the woman, with half her face crushed, moaned.

Elisabeth felt her own heart sink. "I know, your Grace. I am so sorry. There is no water."

She sat next to the woman's shuddering body and waited for dark. She longed to see Maliha's soft honey-colored eyes again, to tousle Tacetin's dark curls, to smile and laugh with Albrecht. She said aloud, "Oh, Elias, I am so sorry I have failed so utterly. But if I must die like this, I am glad at least you were spared that. If I did nothing else right, I tried. I saved Albrecht, Elias. He is happy again now. You would like Andronikos. He dotes on him. You would approve."

A sound came from under the cloth that veiled the Margravina. Elisabeth reached and pulled the cloth away from Ida's face. "Eliath," the woman croaked.

"Your Grace?"

"Pleathe hold me," Ida pleaded.

Elisabeth stretched out alongside her. She took the woman in her arms and gently moved her head so its left side rested on her shoulder. Ida was silent, what little strength she had she used to hold her knight close. Elisabeth remembered that when she had first seen this woman, this lovely woman, she had told Albrecht she wanted to die in her arms. The woman who was now dying in hers.

She could feel the life in that once beautiful body become weaker and weaker. At last Ida shuddered and was still. The most beautiful woman in Europe, the Dowager Margravina of Austria, was dead. And Elisabeth knew she would soon be dead herself, and Ida's son, the Margrave Leopold, would never know what had happened to his mother.

She sat and wept, though there were no tears. She had so little moisture in her body she could make none. As the sun went down, she tried her best to lay out Ida's body, to cover it suitably with the curtains from the litter, and to scrape a trench to lay her in. She knew the animals would get at the body if she did not cover it with stones. She only had the strength to drag a few over. She knelt and prayed for the repose of the Margravina's soul. Then she pulled herself to her feet, and now, with no burden but her thirst, exhaustion and heatstroke, she set out again on her journey. The half moon showed her the way.

She had no idea how much time had passed, how far she had walked, when she fell and moved no more.

She felt herself tumbled from side to side. It felt as if she lay in a cart rumbling painfully up a road. A wineskin spout touched her lips and she drank the water, cool, clear, fresh water that spilled onto her lips. A cool hand stroked her forehead. "Maliha," she tried to say, but her throat was closed and her lips too parched.

"Hush, my love. You are saved. You will be all right." Maliha exchanged glances with someone else in the cart.

Elisabeth craned her neck to see who it was. The movement made her head reel, and she almost passed out. A familiar voice said humorously, "It's Hans. Your friends came and I told them where you had gone. We found the bodies and guessed what you had done, from the drag marks of the poles. No wind down in that defile, you see. The eunuch sent men to follow you, since the cart could not. They found you lying face down on a hillside. They thought your were dead, but obviously you were not. This one has been taking care of you."

She knew he meant Maliha. She looked up into Maliha's wonderful eyes, so full of love. She tried to form the words, "I love you."

"I love you too," Maliha said. "Now let's get home to Tacetin and Albrecht. We will have our whole lives to talk."

The corners of Elisabeth's dust-dry lips lifted as far as they could. She closed her eyes, felt the woman's breasts against her cheek.

Maliha murmured, "Rest, my beloved pilgrim."

Elisabeth sighed and slept.

The End