Renard stared round in search of his knights. Ancelin was in the act of disappearing out of the door with a plump Armenian girl who also sometimes danced. De Lorys was arm-wrestling another customer for the favours of a sultryeyed Syrian woman with a body as lush as the fertile plain of Sharon.

Several times he was approached by one or another of Madam FitzUrse’s girls, but although he knew most of them by name and some by a more intimate acquaintance, he turned them away, his mind dwelling in rank curiosity on the ridiculousness of paying half a mark to spend the night with a whore no matter her beauty or expertise.

Shortly before the dancing was due to start, he finished his drink and went outside to piss, and there, in the star-studded darkness of an eastern night, his present mood of nostalgia was consolidated with such force that for a moment he was totally disorientated.

A man’s voice spoke from the walled shadows, slurred with drink, but unmistakably using the Welsh tongue. A woman answered him in the same language, her voice low, husky and full of anger, and as Renard’s eyesight adjusted, he made out two figures standing close in argument. ‘I will not!’ she hissed. ‘The money is mine. I work for it and you’re not going to swill it down your gutter of a throat!’

‘You little whore, you’ll do as I say!’ The man’s fist wavered up.

‘Go swive yourself!’ Accurately she spat in his face and ducked under his arm. He made a grab for her enveloping dark robe and suddenly a dagger blade flashed in his hand as he wrenched her round to face him.

‘Your face is your fortune, girl!’ he snarled. ‘Don’t tempt me to ruin it.’

Renard set his hand to his own dagger hilt and took a forward pace, but before he could intervene, the girl made a sinuous movement and drew her own blade from within the voluminous folds of her robe. ‘Strike, then,’ she hissed. ‘Let us see who is the faster!’

Small bells tinkled daintily on her ankle bracelets and her feet were bare as she positioned them with feline precision.

Renard’s loins and belly contracted with an instinctive reaction to the dangers of a knife fight. The woman was holding her weapon competently, a gleaming silver crescent, and the man was staring at her in fuddled anxiety. Renard changed his mind about the identity of prey and victim.

‘Listen, lass, there’s no need—’

‘Piss-proud coward!’ she sneered, stepped again and struck. Metal grated on metal and in a circular motion the man’s knife spun like a falling star and puffed in the dust.

Weaponless, the man stared and swallowed. The woman’s feet wove across the ground and Renard caught a glimpse of spangled fabric as she shifted and struck again with the exquisite Saracen blade. Her victim howled and doubled up, clutching at his belly.

Deciding it had gone far enough, Renard shouted and strode towards them.

Startled, the woman looked up and across. Renard received the impression of huge, dark eyes and a chain of coins winking on a smooth, pale brow before she drew the hood of her robe around her face and, knife still in hand, melted into the deep shadows of a stone-arched entry that led into the back of the Scimitar.

‘Whore!’ the man gasped, still doubled over. ‘Conniving, ungrateful whore!’

Renard’s spine prickled. He stared towards the dark mouth of the entry and wondered whether he had really seen it happen or if his imagination was running wine-wild.

The man took one hand from his stomach and looked at the dark smear on his palm. ‘Bitch,’ he moaned. ‘No gratitude.’

‘It was what you deserved.’ Renard glanced round. Behind him he heard the tinkle of bells and the soft patpat of a drum. The dancing had started. ‘Is it bad?’

‘Course it’s bad!’ the man snarled. ‘Look what she’s done, the whore!’

Renard stared. Then he spluttered. The dagger had indeed caught the fool, but only the tip in a thin, red surface inscription. The mortal damage was to the string holding up the grey, stained chausses and whatever shreds of soused dignity the fool was striving to preserve.

Renard gave in to his laughter but was not so overcome that he did not see the man shuffling sideways, eyes to the ground. Reflexes entirely sober, Renard moved rapidly and closed his fingers on the haft of the fallen knife — once a serviceable but now sadly out-worn hunting dagger. The grip was dropping to pieces and the blade had been sharpened so often that it was wafer thin.

Angling his wrist, he struck at the wall, the full force of his right arm behind the blow. A blue spark flashed briefly, illuminating the weapon’s destruction as it shattered. Within the lean strength of his fingers, the grip came apart. He dropped the pieces on the ground, dusted his hands free of fragments and looked steadily at the drunk.

The man swallowed and licked his lips. ‘I was just leaving,’ he said and, clutching a bunched handful of his torn chausses, started hobbling away. He paused once and looked over his shoulder, but Renard still watched him, and with a grunt and a bemused shake of his head, he gave up and shambled off.

The drums pulsed sensuously. A cricket chirred on the wall beside Renard and there was a mark in the stone where the dagger had struck. He gazed at the pieces in the dust and felt uneasy. Nothing that could be pinned down and given form or reason, but he found himself wishing he had chosen not to visit the Scimitar tonight and almost followed the drunkard out into the street.

‘Renard?’ hissed de Lorys from the doorway.

He swung round.

‘Are you going to be out there all night? You’re missing the new dancer!’ He sounded as excited as a child.

The impulse to flee receded. Smiling ruefully at his own misgivings, Renard returned to the crowded interior of the tavern.

Being tall, he could see over the heads of most men. Ancelin was an exception and in his line of vision, but he eased in front of him, elbowing him in the belly when he protested. As he took his first glimpse of the Scimitar’s new dancing girl, he received his second shock of the night.

‘Is she not a beauty?’ muttered de Lorys.

‘Oh definitely,’ Renard responded with more than a hint of dry sarcasm. Beneath the mesh headdress with its head-band of bezants, her kohl-lined eyes were huge and dark, and her garments were of silk fabric, spangled with stars. Her mouth was sultry and as red as blood, and beneath her headdress, the hair that whipped her undulating body was the colour of sun-whitened wheat. Her skin was not the fair or rosy kind that typically accompanied such hair, but was as golden as spilt honey.

The dance she performed for Madam FitzUrse’s gawping customers was of the usual erotic order, guaranteed to send any newcomer to Outremer out of his mind with lust and fill with delight those who had only a passing acquaintance with the land. Men more experienced, who might usually have walked yawning, were riveted by her striking looks and by the way she cast her eyes around the throng like a lioness backed into a corner, one paw raised to strike.

Bells tinkled on her ankles and silver zills chinked between her forefinger and thumb. Her hips moved in a sinuous, hypnotic gyration.

‘Oh God!’ groaned de Lorys in agony as she whirled and the tempo increased. She threw back her head and arched her throat, and the headdress swung and flashed. Torchlight shimmered on her tinselled garments. Her eyes roved contemptuously over her sweating, lusting audience, her pupils as wide and dark as those of a night-hunter. She licked her red, red lips and smiled.

Renard found himself responding and dropped his gaze. On first arriving in Antioch, he had gorged himself on dancing girls, unable to believe his good fortune; gorged until he was sick of the very sight of them and they held no appeal for him. As time passed, his appetite had returned, but these days he consumed in cautious moderation. He felt that he should be using caution now. The dish before him was certainly edible, but so hot that it would likely scorch the fingerprints off anyone attempting to do so, and half a mark was too steep a price to pay for burnt fingers. He shifted restlessly. Men were tossing coins on the floor around her stamping feet. Her fingers fanned over her body, imitating those of a lover and she fell to her knees, hair sweeping the floor as the drums pounded to their climax.

Renard could not help himself. He raised his head and looked at her. Her lids had been closed, but as the final throb of sound resonated and died, she opened them and met Renard stare for stare, and he saw that her eyes were not brown as he had thought, but a blue as rich and deep as the sky beyond the stars.

The Scimitar erupted with roars of appreciation, loud whistles, thumped tables, bellows for more. Coins showered upon the panting, sinuous girl. A drunken young idiot made a grab for her and was snatched away by the scruff. She gained her feet in one lithe movement and lowered lashes that were thick and black, spiky with soot and gum. The drum beat lightly. She danced among the scattered coins, stooping gracefully here and there to collect them up.

Renard’s throat was dry and his palms sweating. He wiped them on his tunic and, turning abruptly away, forced a path through the avid crowd of men. Madam FitzUrse gave him a knowing smile and tipped wine from the pitcher she was holding until his cup brimmed.

‘Well, what do you think of her, my lord?’

Renard took three long swallows to prevent the drink from spilling. ‘She’s a good dancer,’ he said diffidently.

Amused, she mopped a puddle of wine from the trestle. ‘Aye, she’s that, and more if you’ve a mind.’

‘Half a mark.’ He cocked her a bright look. ‘Why so expensive?’

‘Why don’t you ask her to show you?’

‘And risk being stabbed in my dignity?’ he snorted. ‘I think not.’

She pursed her lips and then shrugged. ‘Ah well, if you’re not in the mood, I’m not the one to force you.’ Turning at a shout from her husband, she gestured that she was coming, and patted Renard’s shoulder. ‘Her name’s Olwen. If you change your mind, the payment is half to her and half to me.’

Renard sat down at the trestle to drink. Another girl was dancing now, slender and dark as a dockside cat. His view was more than half blocked but he had no real inclination. Olwen. A Welsh name for a Scandinavian-fair girl who handled a dagger like a man and danced like a sinning angel in a brothel and drinking house frequented by the knights and soldiers of Prince Raymond’s guard. An enigma to be treated with the utmost wariness, if not abstained from completely.

He finished his drink and made to leave, but his cup was pushed back at him and refilled with rich ksara wine. Surprised he stared beyond the lip of the pitcher and a gold-bangled wrist into the dark sapphire eyes of the dancing girl. Their colour was emphasised by the gown she had changed into — damask silk cut in the Frankish style and as deep as midnight.

‘Stay,’ she commanded, giving him the predatory look of a cat at a mousehole.

Renard’s skin prickled. ‘Is this free, or do I have to pay half a mark?’ he challenged, but did as she said.

Her gown rustled, releasing the waft of an exotic, spicy perfume as she sat down next to him. ‘Half a mark? Is that what she told you?’ She jerked her chin at Madam FitzUrse who was watching them with a smug smile.

‘I said I was not interested.’

‘You lied.’ Her voice was a compound of smoke and cream, and held more than a hint of scornful amusement. She extended a taloned forefinger and drew her nail gently over the back of his hand. ‘Men always lie.’ She gave him a slow, wild smile.

Her shoulder rested against his. The neck of her gown was decorously fastened but accentuated rather than concealed her figure. The warmth of her perfume rose from between her breasts. Renard realised that his body, independent of his mind, was gradually being wound up taut like the rope on a mangonel. He could feel the long pressure of her thigh against his and her forefinger in gentle dalliance on his wrist. He shifted away from her. ‘Where did you learn to fight with a knife?’ he asked abruptly.

She picked up his cup and took a long, slow swallow of the wine. ‘I was born with one in my hand.’

‘And your name is Olwen?’

‘Sometimes.’ Lowering the cup, she looked at him. ‘And yours?’

He stretched his legs beneath the bench. ‘That depends on the woman,’ he said with a smile. It was like a sword fight, he thought; each of them trying to strike beneath the other’s guard. ‘Cullwch perhaps?’