Alternate Generals II

… made him think he was seeing ghosts… and what was that, creeping up stealthy as a cat behind him?

Dark-ski

Blood from the death wound spurted out, fresh stains against the others that stained his cloak.Le roi Tafur would call this a baptism, butle roi Tafur was probably the craziest thing to come out of France, notwithstanding the competition.

"What an emir you'd be if only you weren't…"

Another voice.

Whirling, Bohemond tugged his sword free of the man he'd slain. Another pagan to be slaughtered. Next!

"Show yourself!" Bohemond ordered. Perhaps he should order them to get in line.

"If that will content you, Lord Bohemond," said this new enemy. "Dominus meus excellentissimus ac gloriosus Boamundus inspiratus a Deo. You will pardon, I hope, any errors in direct address. Your own fellows stumble in your holy language, separate as it is from the common speech. Your hair betrays you. And your courage, to come out alone at night so close to your enemies."

Sarcastic, sneering bastard, making free with honest knights' errors. They were warriors, not scholars.

"I told you, show yourself!" he snarled, hand on hilt.

The stranger moved out from the shadows into the light. Clearly, he was no mean fighter; Bohemond could see that from how the newcomer carried himself. One hand rested almost casually near the hilt of a sword that could probably chop good Frankish steel into slivers without taking a nick itself. Clearly, the man was either sure enough of his skill, or he had men in hiding (in which case Bohemond was in deep trouble, if not neck deep in a midden). Or both.

There was always the possibility that he was even crazier than the king of the Tafurs. But Bohemond didn't think so.

Madmen didn't wear heavy robes of bronze-and-green silk, embroidered with those symbols the pagans claimed were honest letters, that hung with the weight of the armor they concealed. Madmen didn't watch mortal enemies with steady eyes above a mouth and chin and throat concealed by the same glittering silks.

And madmen didn't laugh like nobles in a quiet room, didn't move their hands away from their weapons, and above all, didn't detach and unstopper richly chased flasks, silver and gold over leather, hanging from their belts.

A sapphire glinted black on the stopper in the starlight as the man pulled down the scarf that masked his face, drank, then passed the flask to Bohemond.

Bohemond tasted, then downed a lusty swallow. Wine, and good wine at that, not the combination of horsepiss and vinegar that even Adhemar called wine these days. "I thought you pagans didn't…"

"Virtue is what Allah pours into your heart and mind, not down your throat," said the stranger. He was well-armed, well-dressed, if not with the elaboration of Yaghi-Siyan or his son. One was dead, the other fled.

Incongruously, the man laughed, then went on in the blend of Frankish, Latin, and Arabic that had become the common tongue of the pilgrimage, "Just because your lord turned water into wine doesn't mean you're drunk all the time. You couldn't fight like that if you were."

"Maybe we'd fight better," Bohemond said with a chuckle that startled him. He nudged the assassin's body with one muddy boot. "Wouldhe have drunk?"

"I think not," said the stranger. "But then, I also thought he would not fail me."

Bohemond laughed and planted his fists on his hips. "Let's work that one out. You had such faith in this… this assassin of yours that you followed him to make sure he carried out your wishes. That doesn't sound like faith to me."

He looked down, found the flask in his hand, and had another gulp of the wine before, a little belatedly, handing it back to its owner.

"For that matter, whatwas his errand?" Bohemond asked. "Or would it be safer to askwho?"

"He was to seek the life of a man named Firouz, that filthy traitor with horns on his head."

Bohemond barked laughter. "The man you seek's died to that name. Washed in the blood of the Lamb or whatever. He's my godson Bohemond now. You'll just have to give up your grudge," he added and held out his hand for the flask.

The man shook his head. "You are too trusting!" he chided. "How do you know I haven't poisoned the wine?"

"You drank," Bohemond pointed out.

"And that is incontrovertible proof that I did not poison the wine? I think not. I might be willing to assure your death with my own. Or, like the ancient King Mithridates, I might have accustomed myself to poisons, a little at a time, until what would kill you and your knights would affect me no more than a surfeit of sherbet."

Bohemond shrugged, trying to shift his position so he could get a glimpse of the face beneath the silksand ease the ache in his leg. "Poison's for Greeks. If you'd wanted me dead, your assassin there would have taken me out. Or tried. You pagans fight like men. Look at you now, come down from up there-" he gestured at the citadel, "-rather than hide like a woman…"

"Or like one of your-you call them ropewalkers, who run away?"

Bohemond bit his lip. Even in the East, they knew that red hair meant a temper of fire, and it would help him not at all if this shadowy emir provoked him into losing his judgment.

He heard a ghost of a chuckle, which improved his temper not at all.

"And what makes you so sure," said the stranger, "that I am from… up there, as you say?"

The night wind erupted, whistling through the charred remnants of the trees on the ground here between city and citadel. Bohemond felt his cloak billow around him, but the other man's garments scarcely stirred. Good metal hidden within them: best not fight him. And a fine mail scarf probably lay beneath the silk that now concealed all of the man's face except his eyes, exceptionally piercing, and so pale for a pagan that Bohemond thought he could practically peer within the fellow's skull.

The wind roared again. Bohemond shifted position, but his enemy moved not at all.

His mouth suddenly dry, Bohemond lifted the flask he still held to drain it.

That was when he saw the interlocked triangles, above and below, forming the six-pointed stars he'd seen in Jewish quarters before his men ran wild with fire and sword. Solomon's Seal, it was called hereabouts, and attributed to mages and to the demons called dji

Bohemond let the flask drop from his hand, then crossed himself. It was a costly toy; a human man would bend to retrieve it, and then Bohemond would have the advantage. A dji

"Such a conclusion you jump to," said the stranger. "I offer you peace and wine. You take the wine, then let my flask fall on the ground, and make holy signs as if I were some creature sent by Shaitan to confound you, not an honest warrior."

The moonlight struck him, turning his burnished splendor all pale. His long eyes gleamed, and he lowered the scarf over his mouth, revealing a jaw fully as stubborn as Bohemond's. He drew his sword, a beautiful movement accompanied by the sweet sound of steel, water patterns glistening down its deadly length. Slowly extending it, he caught up the flask's strap, and held it, dangling from the point, out to Bohemond again.

"Look within, I tell you. There are no dji

Bohemond barked laughter. "Of course not. You already left your bottle." His heart sank about the level of the repairs to his boots. If this emir or whatever he was were sorcerer as well as warrior…