Chapter Eight #2
He made weeping sounds, enough to force Ambra out of her mother’s skirts. She stared at him for a moment, momentarily mystified at his weeping, before emitting peals of naughty laughter.
“I will give you none!” she said.
Markus covered his face with his hand, pretending to weep loudly, before suddenly stopping and peering at her through spread fingers just to make sure Ambra was watching.
She was smiling broadly at him, quite entertained that he should be so crushed.
When she saw that he was looking at her, she laughed again.
“You get none!”
That triggered the crying again, which thoroughly delighted her. But Markus couldn’t keep a straight face for long and ended up grinning at her through his splayed fingers.
“I understand,” he said. “No eggs for me. I will not ask again.”
Ambra giggled, enamored with the big knight, but the subject of eggs and food was quickly forgotten as she tugged on her mother’s skirt again.
“Ama, please,” she said. “I want to find Alfie!”
Amabella put up her hand to silence her begging child before calling out to her older daughter. “Ally?” she said. “Please come to me.”
It took a moment, but Aleanor eventually appeared in the doorway, eyeing Markus with her usual inherent fear before responding to her mother.
“Aye, Ama?”
Amabella held out Ambra’s hand. “Please take your sister to play with Alfie and remain with them,” she said. “I do not mind Alfie being out of my sight, but not Ambra.”
Aleanor didn’t want to go outside. She didn’t want to go out of the chamber, but she knew that Ambra wouldn’t be peacefully corralled. She’d given up on the painting and was now looking for new entertainment.
With a reluctant sigh, she nodded.
“Very well,” she said, coming out of the chamber and taking her little sister by the hand. “Let us find Alfie.”
Ambra went happily, nearly yanking her sister down the stairs. When they disappeared from view, Amabella looked at Markus apologetically.
“I am sorry for the interruption,” she said.
Markus waved her off. “Not at all,” he said. “She is delightful. Cruel, but delightful.”
Amabella laughed softly. “She can be a handful,” she admitted. Then, she motioned for him to follow her. “Come, we shall continue to Roget’s chamber.”
She was heading up the stairs once more, leaving Markus to watch her backside again, only it was worse the second time around.
Something about the woman was appealing to him no matter how much he tried to ignore it.
She was older than he was, a widow with four children, but that didn’t seem to register with him.
She was shapely and beautiful, and he liked that.
In desperation, he tried to distract himself by saying the first thing that came to mind.
“What do your children call you?” he asked. “It is not Mama.”
“Nay,” she said as she neared the top of the stairs. “It is Ama. It means ‘mother’ in Spanish.”
Markus understood. “My father told me that your family was from Aragon.”
They reached the third floor. “That is true,” she said. “I am the first in my family to be born in England. My father was born in Aragon, but my mother was born in Algiers. Have you heard of it?”
Markus nodded. “It is across the sea from Spain,” he said. “Beyond Ibiza, I think. I seem to remember my grandfather telling me that, once.”
“It is a faraway place,” she said as they reached a chamber door, one of two on this dim and musty-smelling level. “My mother’s family came to Aragon from Algiers and that is how my father met her. Her family was exiled royalty, so I’m told. The House of Hemada.”
Now, the conversation about Lady de Sauque was starting to come back to Markus.
Damien had mentioned she had the look of the Berbers, but Markus didn’t see that at all.
She looked English to him except for her eyes – there was some unearthly quality about the color that he’d never seen in England.
The English he knew didn’t have eyes that bewitch like that.
There was, indeed, something different about her, but it wasn’t strange or alien.
It was wildly attractive.
“Then you and I have something in common,” he said as she opened the door to a vast, messy chamber.
“My mother’s father is a Norse king. Magnus the Law-Mender, they call him.
He gave me my name, in fact. Markus – he said the strongest, greatest man he’d ever known was named Markus. He wanted to honor him.”
She paused before continuing into the chamber, looking at him with some warmth and curiosity. “You are the grandson of a king?”
“I am.”
A smile flickered on her lips. “I would believe that,” she said. “You are tall and powerful and handsome. Of course you are the grandson of a king. You have greatness about you.”
Markus was usually the arrogant one, but Lady de Sauque’s praise had him close to blushing, something he was quite unaccustomed to.
“That is kind of you to say so,” he said. “Magnus is a very great man and I do my best to honor him. He is also pushy, intrusive, and arrogant at times. But… he is my grandfather and I adore the man.”
She laughed softly. “It is a good thing that you do,” she said. “I am surprised he did not name you after himself.”
“He saved that for my third brother. He named me and the next eldest brother after his friends.”
“That is sweet,” she said. “My name has a story, too. I was named for the woman my father wanted to marry but was denied. How my mother allowed him to name me Amabella Najima, I will never know.”
She giggled as she said it, causing Markus to grin. “Najima?” he repeated. “I have never heard that name.”
“It means ‘star’ in the language of the Arabs.”
“It is a beautiful name. It suits you.” When he realized he’d just given the woman a compliment, he was mortified.
Even though she had complimented him, he wasn’t comfortable flattering her.
He didn’t want to sound inappropriate, given the circumstances of their association.
After that, he was quick to change the subject. “This is where your husband slept?”
He took a step into the chamber, leaving Amabella at the door. If she was offended by his compliment, she didn’t let on.
She followed him into the chamber.
“This was Roget’s domain,” she said. Then, she pointed to the hearth. “There is a stone in the bottom of the hearth that is loose. Pull it free and there is a hidden hole beneath it. That was where my father hid his wealth.”
Markus headed straight to the hearth, dark and cold and full of ashes.
Going down to one knee, he swept away the soot with his hand, clearing the black stones beneath.
One stone was larger than the others, right in the middle of the hearth, and he pushed on it, seeing that it was, indeed, loose.
Using the fire poker, he managed to pry it up and set it aside as Amabella peered over his shoulder.
“Can you see anything?” she asked.
Markus couldn’t. “It is too dark,” he said. “May I reach inside?”
“Please.”
He reached down with his left hand, not his sword hand, in case there was a trap, but there was no trap to be found. He put his hand on a leather sack, pulling it out. He handed it over to Amabella before reaching in again and pulling forth yet another sack.
It ended up that there were four sacks total, all of them heavy leather and tightly bound, but they were clearly full of coins. He carried two sacks and Amabella carried two sacks, making their way over to the messy bed.
Amabella straightened out the coverlet first before setting her sacks down upon it. Without a word, she unfastened the leather ties. Markus saw what she was doing and he, too, unfastened the leather ties. Soon, the contents of all four sacks were spilled out onto the coverlet.
It was a pile of coins, of great wealth. Three of the sacks had been silver marks, but the fourth was gold. Lots and lots of gold. Awed, Amabella picked up one of the silver coins and held it up to the weak light coming in through the window.
“This is Spanish money,” she murmured.
Markus came up behind her, trying to see what she saw. “I have not seen that type of coinage before,” he said. “How do you know it’s Spanish?”
She held it up to him, pointing to one side of it. “Do you see this shield?” she said, watching him nod. “It is the shield of King Alphonse of Navarre, the four lions. I know this because my father showed me these very same coins and explained it to me.”
Markus could see the four lions within the three-point shield. “So, Roget never spent these,” he muttered. “Interesting.”
Amabella turned to look at him. “My thoughts, as well,” she said. “There have to be hundreds of them, don’t you think?”
Markus was about to agree until he realized how close he was to her.
The mere thought seemed to suck all of the thoughts right out of his head.
This elegant, lush, mature woman had all of his senses engaged as no one ever had.
He found himself looking at her, at the delicate lines of her face, and into those eyes that were so mesmerizing.
She was a woman; so many females he knew were only girls.
Young and silly and giddy, with slender bodies and immature minds, but Amabella… she seemed beyond that to him.
She was what every woman should be but seldom was.
It was an effort to turn away from her.
“At the very least, hundreds,” he said, pretending to focus on the coins. “And look at the gold coins; there have to be at least fifty of those alone. You expressed concern that Shand may have taken some of it. Do you believe it is all accounted for?”
Amabella shook her head. “There is no way of knowing,” she said. “I do know that Roget paid him steadily because I overheard him once say that he paid Shand two pounds a month.”
Markus pondered that. “How long has he served him?”
“A little over ten years.”