Free The Templar Inheritance by Mario Reading

gouts coated the downtrodden herbage. My lust was leaving me. I had become aware of just how far I had travelled in my pursuit of the Saracen. Of the danger I had put myself in.’
    ‘Did you turn back?’
    ‘No, Princess. I was very young. My companions had seen me ride off after the wounded warrior. I did not wish them to laugh at me. I wanted to astonish them. To prove my manhood to them by killing the Saracen and returning to the camp with my prize.’
    ‘So you continued?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why so?’
    ‘My horse, standing on the riverbank, whickered. There was an answering whinny. The Saracen’s horse came galloping back down the valley. Riderless. He had smelt my mare, you see, who was in season. Caught her scent on the wind. Hewas a stallion. He had thrown his weakened rider and was returning to court her. This was clear to me.’
    ‘He could smell her? That far?’
    ‘Just as I can smell you, Princess. It is a natural thing. Between animals. And also between men and women. Otherwise how would the world procreate?’ Hartelius knew that he was edging ever closer to the precipice. But he no longer cared.
    The princess trembled. Yet still she looked away.
    Hartelius lost himself in looking at her. He could see both her and the valley he spoke of. Each was as real to him as the other. ‘I took out my sword and followed the blood spoor left by the Saracen. It didn’t take me long to find him. He had drawn himself up against a tree. He held his scimitar in his left hand. No Muslim fights with the left hand. I knew that his right must be injured. That the blow on the back had damaged his fighting side, and that the fall from his horse had probably weakened him further.’
    ‘You killed him?’
    ‘I circled him, watching. Fighting men are trained to sum up their opponents. Often it is what makes the difference between dying and living. This man was close to exhaustion. As I watched him he slid down the tree and lay pressed against its trunk, his scimitar still held towards me.’
    ‘“Yield,”’ I said, “and I will not kill you.”
    ‘“I cannot,” he said.
    ‘I watched him for some time. He had a beautiful face. Noble. Open. The face of a man I should like to call myfriend. I approached a little closer to him. He no longer had the strength to raise his scimitar to fend me off. I had only to wait. It was simply a matter of time.’
    ‘Then?’
    ‘I dropped my sword and walked towards him. I cannot tell you why I did this. I still do not know. I brushed his scimitar aside with my hand and helped him stretch forwards, onto the ground. I removed his cape. Inspected his chainmail. Neither of us said a word. It was as if we were living in a place outside time itself. Outside the world’s envelope.’
    ‘Is such a thing possible?’
    ‘It is possible.’ Hartelius laid one hand on the princess’s neck. He caressed her hair and her shoulders, lightly, as you would caress a child. ‘The pike had driven through the linkage in his mail and damaged his right shoulder, here. . .’ Hartelius touched the princess’s back ‘. . . to the left of the shoulder blade. I made a pad with moss from a nearby tree and packed it into the wound. The Saracen was no longer fully conscious. I took his scimitar and drove it into the ground near to my sword. Later, when I had finished tending to his wounds, I collected our horses. His stallion had mounted my mare. Such a thing was clear from the condition of her hindquarters. Now they were both still. Grazing together. At peace. That night I chanced a fire. The valley was closed. What you would call a combe. It would have needed a man to walk his horse at the very top of the ridge to see the glow. And still the Saracen slept.’
    ‘And your companions? Back at the camp?’
    ‘I knew they must think me dead.’
    Hartelius’s hand was still resting on the princess. She was not evading it. Once, even, she raised her own hand and touched his lightly with her fingers.
    ‘I