Maria crept out from below the heap of fabric covering her, denying her first impulse to delve back into the warmth and forget her plans; her mind was set on her task and sleep was still a long way off. On hands and knees she made her way to the front of the cart and lowered her uncovered feet silently to the ground. There was enough starlight to see where she was going besides which Maria had been raised on the edge of dense forest she had no fear entering this dark shadowy grove.
She glanced –not without pity- at the bodies of the men Altair had killed and promised that she would take care of them in the morning. Gerhard's body was closer to the trees and she made a similar silent promise to his remains. Her nimble feet negotiated the uneven ground with speed and precision leaving her with only a couple of new cuts and nicks to add to her earlier injuries. She heard the gentle lapping of the water ahead and hastened her step.
Without pausing she passed the spot where the madness now wreaking havoc in her mind had been given life. She reached the articles left on the ground by Altair before lowering her hands to the skirts of her dress and pulling it over her head then continuing naked to the water's edge. Unsure of its depth she pondered entering one leg at a time but dismissed the idea in favour of diving in head first, that always felt more natural to Maria. The cold water stung her skin, stealing the very breath from her lungs but she recovered and submerged her body once more into the murky depths hoping the cold caress of the water would reach below her skin, the very place she tried to convince herself Gerhard had been unable to touch.
She swam back to the edge and hauled herself onto the bank, her teeth were knocking together and her whole body was trembling but she felt better. She snatched the dress from the ground and roughly dried her skin with the heavy material then threw it back over her head, it stuck to her damp body but at least her nudity was once more covered. Using her hands she wrung out her long hair as best she could before sitting on the ground where he had been earlier hugging her legs to her shivering body.
'How did I get so lost and how do I find my way back to life?'
She knew one possible path was lying in the cart sleeping but was that a step she was willing to take? After Robert how could she even consider attaching herself to a man even more devoted to his cause than he was? Robert De Sable had saved her life and given her something she had never experienced, real responsibility and respect. His journals had mentioned her as a problem but Maria knew far more about that than the assassin might suspect. Perhaps it was finally time for them to discuss her former lover.
Robert De Sable... how do you make someone understand that despite everything he had done wrong she still loved him and always would? And not this nonsensical emotion that swept over her every time she saw the assassin either, that she felt was driven by lust. Admiration and loyalty had been the main driving forces of what she felt for the Frenchman and despite how it ended those feeling were still intact.
Neither Peter nor Robert had ever made her feel the way she did now; thinking about the assassin could twist her stomach and steal her desire to eat or sleep. It was an itch she knew she would have to scratch yet it troubled her that a man could have so much impact on her thoughts and actions.
She gathered his discarded possessions and made her way back to him. She might not have the first idea how to proceed with the assassin but at least she could crawl back under the piles of clothes and warm her freezing bones.
Altair was standing at the edge of the trees with his arms folded in front of him. Maria smiled as she handed him his sash and armour, "How close to the river did you get?"
"I followed you from here when you left but once you undre... uh once I realised what you were doing I withdrew to give you privacy."
She smirked and flipped her sodden hair over her shoulder. "Shame you never considered joining me, the water was lovely."
She sauntered past him and threw a mischievous glance back over her shoulder, "Are you coming inside? I think the time has come for us to have a serious conversation."
Bundled up in most of Gerhard's possessions with Altair adding a few more for good measure before drawing her in to his chest so he could rub her arms Maria tried to think of the best place to start. "The man I told you about, the knight who took me from the dungeon, his name is Stephen Marshal and he is a true friend and it was he Gerhard was trying to force me to name."
She felt his body stiffen as he remembered the conversation, "The man who you would cut my throat to protect?"
"Yes but the thing is I wouldn't, he was wrong about that. If you keep your word that Stephen will be unharmed until we find real proof then we will have no quarrel assassin. What I went through for Robert was too painful to endure again. I'll kill him myself if he is the new chief conspirator." She lifted her face to him, "I regret what happened earlier you have been patient with me and I let my temper get the better of me."
Softly smiling he put his chin on her head. "We are who we are Maria; I drew my own blade tonight. I think we can expect life to be... interesting as long as we remain together."
Hastily returning the conversation away from "them together" she said, "Robert did love me you know but that problem he mentioned in his journal was always going to be difficult to overcome." She felt his head move and sensed his questioning expression. "He was married, he had a wife and daughter at home in France."
"And you considered this appropriate?"
She noticed his arms, which had wrapped around her waist at some point, tightened against her. "No I never considered it all until it was too late. It wasn't planned; there was no courtship or anything. We never did anything like this." She lifted her hands to signify she was talking about here and now but blushed uncharacteristically, glad she had her back to him she stammered on, "I'm not saying this is a courtship I simply intended to infer that we spent very little time together alone before we became intimate."
True to form he stayed silent encouraging her to continue speaking. "I was already his Steward he promoted me months before anything of that nature happened so don't go assuming I earned that title on my back assassin!"
"I wouldn't dare make such a foolish assumption Maria."
"See you keep it that way!" but she was smiling and it added a seldom heard, light hearted lilt to her voice. "The point I'm making is by the time I found out about his family I was already in way over my head. I loved him for what he did for me but in the end going to Jerusalem and facing you in his place seemed like a perfectly honourable way to bring it to an end."
"What did he do for you that you felt you owed him your life Maria?"
"He saw past my gender." She snickered awkwardly and shifted her position so that her feet were out from under her legs, "It took a lifetime for me to meet someone who saw my potential and while he may have exploited that it doesn't negate the fact that he believed me to be as capable as or even more so than any of the men in his command. Stephen likewise saw my skills and even advanced them but there is a limit with him, at the end of the day he still sees me as a woman and behaves protectively toward me. He would never have allowed me to stand in for him as Robert did but then he would never have broken his vows to his wife or his order either."
"I get the impression you and he care for each other deeply."
"I think so but my judgement has been shaky at best."
"I hope Gerhard spoke falsely for your sake Maria. I have no respect for what Robert did, sending you to face me -however capable you may be- was wrong. Acknowledging your skill is one thing but endangering someone you care for to save your own skin is unacceptable. I agree with your friend in this matter."
"Maybe that's why I liked Robert so much he never made the distinction outside of our private quarters that is." She thought of the man lying outside, "Stephen and I were never lovers; Gerhard only said that to demean me. I make no apologies for my life and the sins I've committed but God knows I don't need any extra added on. My husband and Robert are the only men I was ever... well Gerhard but I didn't grant him permission. "
Crossing his arms over her chest and placing a hand on each of her shoulders he mumbled into her hair, "He doesn't count."
Maria mulled over what had been said, she felt it was now his turn to provide an answer or two. Mainly to a question he himself had posed on the boat from Cyprus. "Why am I still alive? You had numerous chances and good reason to end my life and yet you never did."
He took some time to deliberate before replying, "I never felt you deserved death I can't exactly say you are an innocent but even in Jerusalem I didn't get the impression you were truly my enemy."
He heard her sigh before her body slightly shifted. His first thought was that she was going to move away from him and while there was more distance between them now she was still in his arms, just not so close. He bit the inside of his cheek; she perhaps needed to hear more personal reasons for his obvious interest in her. "You asked me earlier what my expectations of you are... I have expectations Maria but you constantly make me adjust them, I find you unpredictable and often irrational. The one constant has been I expect you to do the right thing and you usually do in the end even if you take an unusual path to that end."
Her soft laughter told him he hadn't upset her causing him to relax; . "You also asked what I want from you and the short honest answer is that too changes with time. The more time we spend together the more I seem to hope for."
She knew he wasn't enjoying this but his discomfort was delicious to her; seeing a man normally absolutely in control of his thoughts and actions struggling to find the right thing to say was somehow endearing. Curious to see how far she could push him she enquired "And what are those hopes?"
Not pausing and no longer sounding quite so unsure he offered his response "You are like an empty book Maria with pages yet to be filled. The smallest thing can bring such delight to you and I enjoy seeing that. I spent a lifetime with people who are educated to the limits of their thinking and to now meet someone at the beginning of that journey is exciting to me."
If it wasn't so threatening the look she tossed over his shoulder to him would have made him smile, "Are you saying I'm stupid?"
"No, far from it Maria, now stop interrupting and let me finish speaking for once. As a woman your education by your own admission wasn't as broad as it could have been. I very much enjoy being the one to show you new things or who opens a door to a new way of thinking. We could have learned together on our travels but things seldom work out as one would wish."
She was positively bubbling on the inside and no longer concerned with hiding it from him. "I wanted that too it's a shame it was spoiled." Now back to his discomfort... "So you wanted a travelling companion and not a lover?"
He smirked knowing damn well she was fully aware of his desire for her but the wily woman was determined to make him spell it out, so be it... "That would fall into the category of things I came to hope for from the future."
"We don't have a future Altair. You will never leave your order and I would be hung from the nearest suitable branch if I went within 10 miles of your home."
He had given this notion a great deal of thought and he knew the former was probably true but the latter... He was on the verge of disputing her claim when she turned to face him.
"But what we do have is now." She spoke as she brought her face closer to his, "I know I stopped you before but if you are willing I'd like to try again."
His reply, although non-verbal, left no room for doubt. His mouth found hers as his arms stretched out to find her waist. He had been sitting cross legged behind her to allow her to lean back into him and now she kneeled in the gap between his knees.
Her hands cupped his face as she increased the force of the kiss, parting his lips with her tongue. Wary of moving too fast he kept his hands on her back and submitted wholly to the pace she was setting. Her breath was coming in rapid shallow bursts against his increasingly eager mouth, neither one wanting the contact of their lips to be broken not even for air.
She pushed down his hood and her fingers tangled with his hair, pulling his head closer to hers, her tongue probed farther into his mouth, meeting his own with increasingly rougher strokes. Each soft moan she emitted stole another piece of his resolve to hold back and let her control how far they went, his desire was beginning to win that battle.
He felt her move and clamped his arm around the small of her back to hold her next to him but he needn't have worried as she had no intention of leaving, quite the opposite... She climbed into his lap placing one leg on either side of his. Taking hold of his hands she guided them to her thighs, "I think you were somewhere around here assassin."
He groaned as he felt her hands push his along the length of her smooth skin bringing him to the edge of where the dress had gathered around her thighs. He moved at first cautiously below the material inching closer to her hips and when she gave no sign of disapproval he wrapped his fingers around her buttocks and pulled her hips against his. Continuing his hands journey along the length of her body still moving the dress higher as he went, he reached her breasts. She closed her eyes when his fingers shifted across the surface of her breasts but when he pinched a nipple between his thumb and forefinger she exhaled and her eyes opened.
He pulled the dress the rest of the way over her head and when she lifted her arms to allow for its complete removal he brought his mouth to her breast, teasing and kissing her flesh making her squirm. This tongue trailed a path from her breast to her throat as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs behind his waist. He lowered her gently to the floor and separated their bodies so he could take off his boots and trousers. He never took his eyes off her body as he undressed; the dim oil lamp in the corner illuminated one side of her body and threw the other into shadow.
She had raised herself onto her elbows to watch him, "More men should climb towers assassin it does wonders for your shape." He dropped to his knees between her legs and she grinned, "Come here you." He let his eyes have one more lingering look at her body before lowering himself back into her eager embrace.
He had begun this nervously, thinking about the blow Gerhard had delivered and being concerned he would hurt her but those thoughts were banished. The feeling of her skin next to his and her body moving with his consumed him completely. His hands and mouth explored as much of her body as her impatient desire would tolerate; he lost himself in her and wouldn't notice he had until it was over. Everything about her intoxicated him and if she had let him he would have spent long hours tasting and touching her.
His fingers were teasing between her thighs and his mouth was working its way to join them but her fingers in his hair tugged him back to her face. He was surprised to see she was panting, her lips were parted and her beautiful pale skin was flushed. He stroked her face to move the stray waves of her hair that were sticking to it. She moved her hand between their bodies and guided him to where she needed him the most. He framed her head with his arms and pushed forward, her hips left the floor as she rose to meet him. He kept her gaze locked on his for the first few soft strokes marvelling at how she was reacting to his touch. His desire to please her was guiding him, unlike the women he had bedded before his own pleasure seemed to be dependent on hers. Her moans urged him on, her fingers digging into his shoulders made him move faster, he began riding her faster and she matched him thrust for thrust.
Her hands moved down his back urging him on as her moans became deeper and longer. She wrapped her legs tightly around his back and arched her body, moulding it to his. His own body was beginning to feel the first tingle of climax, the small tingles were slowly building up in his groin and in a few more strokes would be waves of delicious fire coursing through his body. His head dropped beside hers as he released inside her gasping and short of breath.
They lay breathless and still for a time before Maria turned to reach for her dress. "It's still damp, leave it off until morning." She smiled as he enveloped her with his arms and pulled her body tightly against his. Draping an arm across his chest her head snuggled into his shoulder before she let her eyes close. His lips brushed against her forehead as his hand rested on her arm.
He awoke alone as usual and it took a few seconds to shake off the sleep and figure out why that felt wrong, "Maria?" But she was no longer in the cart. Had she left in the night? He threw on his outer clothes and stepped down from the cart trying to swallow down the disappointment he tasted in his throat.
The soldiers had been placed together, all except Gerhard that is but there was no sign of her. He bit his lip as he tugged his armour straps into place. 'Where the hell has she gone now?' He quickly decided Acre would be his best bet and turned to gather the rest of his equipment when he saw her emerge from the trees.
She walked up to him smiling warmly and his annoyance at her absence was forgotten in a heartbeat. "I was about to wake you to help me cover their bodies. We can use the cover from the cart. I went to the river and got us some breakfast." Proudly holding up a fish in each hand.
He gestured toward Gerhard, "And him?"
"He was the Grandmaster of the Teutonic Knights we can't treat him the same way. There will be something more appropriate for a man of his rank in the cart."
Together they removed the heavy material from the roof of the cart. He noticed one of the soldiers was no longer wearing trousers or boots so he dipped his head below the fabric they were carrying and sure enough below her dress he could see a pair of boots poking out. "You took his clothes!"
The faintest blush tinged her cheeks, "He doesn't need them and I do. I can't ride back to Acre side-saddle Altair it would be uncomfortable."
"I'm surprised they fit you."
She screwed up her face and lifted the dress to show him just how well they "fit". "He was the smallest of them but I can tie the waist with something and they'll be fine. I had to stuff the toe of the boots but I may well keep them regardless, they are a bloody well made pair of boots."
Stripping the clothes from a dead man then looking for a suitable way to protect his body from the elements, he doubted he would ever truly understand this woman.
"Their brothers will come for them and give them a decent burial, that fat bastard over makes that a certainty."
"What shall we use to cover his body Maria?"
She bunched her lips together as though giving the matter some thought but Altair had the idea she knew exactly what she wanted to use. "Breakfast first then we can cover him up."
Altair cooked the fish on a spit while Maria used Gerhard's dagger to fashion herself a belt from one of his nightshirts. She was behaving as though nothing had happened between them and Altair began to wonder if she had only wanted his company to satisfy her immediate needs. The irony of that wasn't lost on the man who had never given any of his former lovers much thought once the deed was done.
"Ideally I would cut the skirts off this dress and make a tunic but I wouldn't feel right doing that to Ceana's dress so I'll improvise." She began tucking the material of the dress into the wide fabric of her belt. "There now it's just as if it was made especially for me."
He smirked, "You look ridiculous."
She looked down at herself balancing on her heels to see her bum, "I look like a big fat arsed pregnant mother." She sauntered over to him, "Had I come to you last night wearing these would you have sent me away?"
She wrapped her arms around his neck, "I would have sent you away without a second thought." Taking hold of her waist he lifted her to his face to kiss her.
"Yet here you are trying to kiss me in the very clothes which would have cost me your affections."
"Because I know what lies beneath the miles of material."
They shared a brief kiss before she kicked her feet in the air, "Put me down we have to get moving."
Dropping a kiss on her nose he placed her on the floor, "Gerhard's shroud?"
She cut another smaller piece out of his nightshirt and tucked it into her belt before examining the supplies they hadn't eaten. She found what she was looking for and jumped from the cart making her way to the seats up front. He watched her baffled as she lifted the pole bearing the Teutonic coat of arms and walked toward the German.
He saw what she was going to do too late to stop her. She raised the pole above her head and brought it down against his stomach with all the strength she had. There was a sickening sound as his dead flesh was pierced. She then approached his face and began to crumble bread on top of it.
Still sickened by her unexpected impaling of a dead man he was almost afraid to ask, "What are you doing Maria?"
She looked at him as though he were a fool. "I'm covering his face and neck with bread crumbs assassin."
He took a step closer trying to ignore the smell emanating from the dead man, "I can see that but why are doing it?"
Finished she dusted her hands over his fallen body then wiped them on her newly acquired trousers, "I'm not sure which wild animals can be found around here and I want to make certain the meat eaters and the grass chewers feel equally welcome to come and have a nibble."
"You literally want them to come and eat his remains." He looked appalled and Maria simply smiled and nodded.
"I wanted to cut him into tiny pieces and feed him to the stray dogs at the harbour but you wanted your precious bloody answers so this is the next best thing. She moved towards the fallen soldiers mounts, "Shall we go?"
He cast a quick glance back at the German and shuddered, "He's dead Maria anything you do after that is pure hatred."
She swung herself into the saddle and chuckled, "It's far more than hatred assassin. While you were sleeping I cut off his balls and used them as bait to catch the fish we ate."
He stopped midway into the saddle, "You best be joking." Looking ashen faced he stared at her with horror.
Her chuckle became outright laughter, "I had no idea you had such a delicate constitution, I wish I had known that on Cyprus I could have had such fun."
She jostled her mount into a trot but the assassin stayed put, she turned in the saddle and called to him, "Relax I was joking."
He kicked his horse and caught up with her not liking the smirk on her face, not one little bit.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost
I got it done! It's 1.30 am and I have no idea if this sucks or not but it's done and hopefully the lemon isn't too bitter :( I really struggle writing that stuff.