Standard of Honor

THREE

May went by, and then June, without another word reaching the St. Clair estate from Richard, but Sir Henry barely noticed the time passing. He was too intent upon regaining the conditioning that he had lost since his wife’s death, aware that even before she died, he had surrendered to a life of comfort and sloth, smugly and silently claiming the privilege of an older man who had served his lord’s—and before that his lady’s—purposes well. Now, having learned all too belatedly that his self-indulgence had been both premature and ill advised, he felt the full weight of his age as he struggled to regain some of his former strength and the associated skills that had been his stock-in-trade.

He had begun by learning to ride again, suffering the pains of the damned as his body rebelled against the disciplines his muscles had forgotten. The riding itself was unforgotten, of course, but his stamina had atrophied and his old bones and sinews protested against the indignity of being battered and bruised as he fought grimly to recapture the ability to spend long hours and days in the saddle without respite.

He rode for five hours on the first day of his renewed odyssey, and when at length he returned to the castle and climbed clumsily down from the saddle, almost falling as his feet struck the ground, his aching muscles were screaming at him for rest. But he ignored them. Instead, he forced himself to walk into the training yard and take up his sword, after which, alone and face to face with a foot-thick, upright balk of solid oak that had been hacked and dented for decades by the weapons of trainee recruits, he launched himself into the ancient, elementary exercises designed to teach a novice the basic techniques of swordplay. He swung his sword against the post for more than an hour, religiously following the basic drills until he could no longer summon the strength to raise his arms, and then he staggered to his chamber, up the familiar stairway that he thought would never end, and fell face down on the bed like a dead man, before the sun even came close to setting.

He woke up late, in broad daylight, and barely had the strength to raise himself to his feet. Every muscle in his body felt rigid, cramped and corded like old, gnarled wood, and his buttocks and inner thighs were bruised as though they had been beaten with steel rods. He lurched towards the well in the courtyard, recovering his powers of movement very slowly, and doused himself in icy water, cursing savagely at the shock of it, but not as loudly as he would have liked, for fear of scandalizing the servants. He toweled himself dry with a piece of sacking, surprised to find himself feeling a grudging sympathy for all the young novices he had ground through the same punishing routine for so many years without a thought for their pain and misery.

When he was dry and feeling slightly fresher, he reeled towards the kitchens on legs that were achingly inflexible and still unsteady, unaware that no one, including the faithful Ector, had yet dared to speak to him. Then, when he had eaten, he made his way to the stables and called for his horse, only to discover that he was absolutely incapable of mounting it because his stiff old legs would not stretch far enough to permit it. He called irascibly for a leg up from a sturdy groom, and then had to suffer the additional indignity of requiring his feet to be placed in the stirrups, since his legs were not limber enough to permit him to find them unaided. By the time he clattered out of the cobbled yard and through the gates, the entire staff of the castle was holding its breath, waiting for him to explode as he had in bygone days, but when he disappeared without incident they heaved a collective sigh of relief and went about their daily affairs.

It took two full weeks for his body to begin adjusting to the demands he was thrusting upon it after such a long period of idleness, and there were several of those days when he believed he could no longer subject himself to such unending pain and punishment, but Henry St. Clair had never shirked his duty. He had, in truth, spent a lifetime training other people mercilessly, drilling discipline and obedience and acceptance into callow students, and he now used himself no less harshly than he had used them. He had no other choice, for he recognized his own weakness and would have died of shame had young Richard Plantagenet come back and seen him before Henry himself was ready to be seen.

But then came a day when the pain of hauling himself into the saddle seemed less severe, and when the bite of his swung sword in the late afternoon felt cleaner, somehow, the arc of its swing more crisp and decisive. After that, working each day harder than the day before, he improved rapidly in every area: bodily strength, stamina, agility, and horsemanship. His face and hands grew dark from riding daily in all weathers, and although his muscles appeared to him to be no bulkier or more solid, he could nonetheless feel them increasing in strength with every day that came. He could swing his sword now against the post for hours on end, smashing out slivers and splinters of the heavy oak, with only minor intervals of rest between attacks, and he exulted in the joy that simple ability brought him, for it was undeniable proof that he was hardening himself. Even his armor appeared to have grown lighter nowadays, he noticed, and he was barely aware of its bulk and rode fully armed and armored at all times.

Early that June, he shared his table with a French knight who had been passing by and claimed his hospitality for a night. His guest informed him at dinner that warfare had broken out again between the kings Philip and Henry, and that Duke Richard, snubbed yet again by his father in the matter of the accession to England’s throne, had sided openly with Philip against King Henry, joining the French king in besieging his own father in Le Mans, the town where Henry had been born, and the place he was said to love more than any other. The knight, whose name was du Plessey, told Sir Henry that he had left Le Mans under siege two days earlier, carrying dispatches south, by way of Tours and Poitiers to Angoulême on Philip’s personal behalf. In spite of persistent questioning by his host, however, he was unable to provide any information about either André St. Clair or Sir Robert de Sablé, with whom André had been traveling constantly since Richard’s visit in April, so Henry was unable to ascertain whether his son had been with Richard’s forces at Le Mans.

Then, mere weeks later, on the sixth of July, a beautiful summer afternoon, André arrived home alone, in prime condition and glad to be back in his own territories, even though it would be for but a few days on this occasion. He, too, was on his way to Angoulême, it transpired, to deliver official documents from Sir Robert de Sablé in Orléans to the preceptor of the Temple commandery there.

André’s arrival threw Sir Henry’s entire household into a frenzy of celebration, for the young man was dearly loved by everyone and it had been months since anyone had seen him. Henry had accepted and accommodated the general excitement with good humor, sharing his son generously on the first day and night of his unexpected homecoming and making no attempt to engage him on anything more important than the standard generalities being bandied about by everyone else at dinner that night. It was not until the rest of the household had retired and even Ector had been sent to bed that father and son were able to sit and talk together over a jug of Henry’s beloved pale yellow wine, purchased unfailingly each year from his favorite vineyards in the neighboring province of Burgundy, less than a hundred miles to the east.

Much of the idle talk throughout that day had been about Sir Henry’s recent training regimen, with everyone eager to deliver his or her own report to André on the startling improvements in his father’s appearance and overall health, and now, when André sought to bring the subject up again, Henry waved his comments aside.

“We have talked enough about me and what I have been doing. I am far more interested in you and your activities. What have you been doing? I have been presuming that you were with Richard’s army, since he seems to want to keep Sir Robert de Sablé close to him, and from the single letter you sent me last month, I gather that wherever Sir Robert goes nowadays, you go, too.”

André tipped his head, twisting his mouthy wryly. “Not always, Father, but I admit Sir Robert has taken a keen interest in my welfare and has been extending himself on my behalf ever since the day he chose to believe my story.” He smiled more openly then, his voice growing less formal. “If the Temple Knights refuse to have me, it will not be Sir Robert’s fault. He has decided that I am suitably qualified to be a Templar, and I am tempted to agree with him now, having taken time to think upon what is involved. Would it displease or disappoint you, sir, were I to become a full-fledged member of the Order?”

“A Templar monk?” Henry was surprised by the question. It had never occurred to him that his son might take up the burden of monkhood. He sat frowning for some time, twisting an end of his mustache. “I really have no answer for that, André. Would it displease me? I see no reason why it should, on first thoughts. And yet already there are second and third thoughts spinning in my mind. Would it disappoint me? Hmm … Two years ago, when your mother was alive, it might have, for she always dreamed of having grandchildren, but now that she has left us, God rest her soul, the urgency of that regret is gone, too. You are my only son, and the last of our particular line, which means that if you die without sons, there will be an end of us.” A tiny smile flickered briefly at one corner of his mouth. “Some might think that no great loss, I am sure. We have cousins enough, but none that are really close, and the one of those you most admire is already a Temple Knight and therefore a monk himself. So, should you decide to join the Order outright, you would be in good and noble company.” He thought again for a few moments, then concluded, “No, André, I should be neither displeased nor disappointed, so be it that was what you really wished to do. And providing that I were able to spend time with you in Outremer before you took final vows, I would have no complaints.”

“You know it would mean that I would have to give this castle and all my possessions to the Order upon your death?”

“I understand that, but what does it matter? There will be no one else with any rights to the place once I am dead and you become a monk. Better, perhaps, to donate it to the Order, where it may serve some useful purpose, than to leave it to be squabbled over after your own death by grasping relatives. No, I am convinced— if that is your wish, your chosen course, then so be it.” He clapped his hands together once. “Now, tell me about the world out there. What is happening beyond my gates that I should know about? The last thing I heard was that Richard and Philip were besieging King Henry in Le Mans. Is that debacle still going on?”

“No, not at all. It is over, long since. The city fell after only a few weeks, in late June. Richard turned the populace out and burned the place down ten days ago. King Henry escaped just before the city’s surrender and fled south, towards Chinon, and Richard followed hard on his heels as soon as he had issued the burning order. I was in Tours last night, at the Temple’s commandery there, and in the course of the evening I heard several tales of what has happened since then, but I can attest to the truth of none of them. There are so many reports, from so many sources, that it would be foolish to attempt to distinguish truth from falsehood among them.”

“Tell me some, at least, of what you heard.”

André shook his head in disgust. “Some say the old man is fallen gravely ill, on his deathbed, his spirit finally crushed by the wanton destruction of his native city. And I heard that he was robbed by his own people after the sickness struck him—the followers and fawning hangers-on who ever flock about him—and he now has nothing left.”

Sir Henry’s brow creased into a quick frown. “That is iniquitous. But you say Richard pursued him. I presume he would have caught up with him once the old man fell sick, if not before. Did he then do nothing to stop this theft you describe?”

“I doubt he was aware of it, Father. Richard had other matters on his mind, and I gather he was ruthless in prosecuting them.”

“Other matters … such as what?”

“It surprises me that you would even have to ask.

The Vexin, first and foremost. Facing death, Henry did what he would never do in life. He named Richard heir to England, officially. That was three days ago, on the third of July, according to what I heard last night. At the same time and by the same report, he decreed that his wife, Eleanor, be freed from her prison in the tower at Winchester in England, where he has kept her these last sixteen years. And he formally relinquished any claim he might have held to the Vexin, agreeing to hand over the Princess Alaïs to Philip Augustus and Richard, so that Richard can marry her and settle the matter of the Vexin dowry—and with it, the entire issue of the English/French agreement to the Holy War—once and for all.”

Sir Henry sat silent for long moments before he murmured, “The old man must be sick indeed, to have given up so much … and Richard must have pressed him hard.”

“Aye, Father, and he pressed even harder than that. Henry was forced to surrender castles and estates that he has owned all his life, and to cede territories to Richard that were never in dispute. They say that Richard left him nothing at the end, not even dignity. I also heard that, after he had conceded everything Richard demanded of him, the King prayed aloud that he might be allowed to live until he could achieve a fitting revenge on his ungrateful son, but died immediately thereafter, denied even that satisfaction by a God whom he flouted too many times. I can’t swear to the truth of that, though. His death, I mean. Others present disputed that. Bear in mind I am only reporting second hand.” André’s tone assumed a note of bitterness. “Yet I heard, too, that Richard began weeping and praying for his father’s soul a few hours before the old man died, starting the moment he had wrung everything he wanted from him.”

“Who would have told you such a thing?” The frown on Sir Henry’s face had deepened to a scowl of disgust. “Who would dare speak such words? Whoever he may have been, he was no friend of Richard Plantagenet.” André made no attempt to reply, and his father went on. “You said you were in the Temple commandery in Tours, did you not? And it was there you heard such things talked about openly, among strangers? I find that hard to credit. Among the knights themselves, in their own quarters, yes, I could accept that they might discuss such things in privacy. But you are no Templar, and thus to have heard such tales, you must have been among the public crowds.”

“No, Father, not quite.” André shrugged his shoulders very gently, managing to deprecate his own importance with that gesture. “I was privileged to be in the company of a pair of Temple Knights whom I have come to know well these past few months. They work closely at all times with de Sablé, acting as couriers between him, Duke Richard, and the King of France on behalf of the Order. It was as their guest that I was able to overhear so much.”

“Aye, but even so, André, unless drastic changes have recently been made, personal friendships have no standing in such things, not when it comes to oaths and secrecy. You are not of the Order. You do not belong, and you must therefore be treated—and mistrusted— accordingly. But I mislike the entire smell of this, the disloyalty involved in even speaking of such things.”

André’s brow wrinkled. “Disloyalty? How may that be, Father? We are discussing the Knights of the Temple. Their sole loyalty is to the Pope himself. No temporal ruler, be he emperor, king, or duke, has any claim upon their loyalty.”

“I am aware of that, André, as aware as I am of the fact that you are not yet one of them … unless there is something you have not told me about your present situation? Are you informing me that you have already been raised to the ranks of the elect?”

His father’s tone, raised in mock interrogation, was skeptical, and André was far from being surprised, but he had long since learned to accept that there were things about himself and his life that he could never reveal to his father, things they could never discuss. He waved one hand and shook his head before standing up and walking to the great iron brazier in the hearth, where he set his wine cup on the mantel before squatting down to throw fresh fuel from the piled logs on one side of the fireplace onto the dying fire, thereby gaining himself some time to shake off and conceal the guilt that always affected him at such times, even after years of living with the knowledge that his secret had nothing to do with his filial love and respect for his father. But his silence did not go unnoticed, for his father now asked, somewhat peremptorily, “What are you dreaming about down there?”

André rose to his feet fluidly. “The Templars,” he said casually, lying without effort, as always, when it came to safeguarding the secrets of the brotherhood. “I was watching the flames licking the wood, and thinking that we won’t see much wood in Outremer. Not firewood, anyway. The people there burn camel dung, I’m told. That reminds me of a tale I once heard about a Templar sergeant whose primary duty, for several years, was to have his men gather up all the dung they could find in the streets of Jerusalem, for fuel.”

“That sounds like a worthwhile way to serve one’s God …”

André ignored his father’s sarcasm. “Apparently Hugh de Payens thought so, for he was the man who assigned the duty.”

“Hugh de Payens? Was he not—?”

“The first Master of the Temple, the Founder of the Order. Aye, Father, that was he.”

“Hmm.” Henry contemplated his son. “You think you really will join them, André, vows and all?”

A fleeting grin from his son reassured Sir Henry greatly.

“Oh, I think not, sir,” André drawled. “It’s an idea that flits through my mind from time to time, nothing more. I will fight as one of their force in Outremer, that is a promise given, but I doubt I will take the formal, binding vows.”

“Then why are you so involved with them, with this de Sablé fellow?”

“I’m not.” André’s eyes had widened as his father asked the question. “Not involved with the knights, I mean. With de Sablé, yes, but he is not a Templar, not yet. We are both working for Richard. Working hard, too.”

“Doing what?”

André’s face quirked into a smile. “Well, Sir Robert is organizing what may become the largest fleet of ships ever launched, whereas I am training men to use the new crossbow, the arbalest.”

“What’s new about a crossbow? This … what did you call it?”

“An arbalest, sir. It’s the latest, most up-to-date development of the weapon. As you know, I’ve loved the crossbow ever since I was strong enough to load one, and of course Richard himself has, too. Well, he and I started talking after he and Sir Robert came here that day, and he wanted to know about the shot I made—how I gauged it, aimed it, that sort of thing—when I killed the priest, that de Blois slug. One word led to another and the upshot of it was that he charged me with the task of putting training in place for new levies of crossbowmen immediately. Not to train arbalesters, you understand, but to train other men as teachers, and to place particular emphasis on training with the new arbalest. He is very keen on it, and I can see why.”

“Have you spent much time with him since you left home?”

“With Richard?” André shook his head. “No, barely any time at all. A half hour here and there, and perhaps three hours the day he set me to the training task, for he wanted to be sure I understood what he required of me. Apart from that, I have seen him only five times since then, all of them from a distance as he rode by.”

“Good. That may be fortunate. Trust me, as your father, André. Be careful of Richard. Should you start spending more time close to him, you will find there are aspects of his character that will probably offend you. I’ll say no more than that, for you are old, smart, and ugly enough now to see such things for yourself and draw your own conclusions, but if you do find yourself growing disgusted at any time, in God’s name keep your displeasure shielded from his eyes. Richard mislikes being disapproved of, almost as much as being crossed. He resented it as a boy and I doubt he has grown out of that.” Henry watched his son’s face darken with curiosity, but waved an extended finger in dismissal of the topic. “Tell me, then, why the enthusiasm for this new arbalest device? What is so different about it, compared with any other crossbow?”

André’s eyes lit up with enthusiasm. “Power,” he said. “Sheer, unbelievable power. And accuracy. It’s named after the old Roman weapon, the ballista. Do you know what the ballista was?”

His father’s head came up as though he had been stung. “Do I know—? God’s teeth, boy, do you really think me that ignorant? I was a Master-at-Arms before you were even born! It was an artillery piece, modeled after the Greek catapulta, the original crossbow. Ballistae were large, two-armed throwing devices, made of wood and powered by torsion ropes wound by ratchets, and they could hurl a stone or sometimes a heavy spear for half a mile and more, predictably and accurately.”

His son was nodding eagerly, still bright eyed. “Aye, made of wood, as you said. Well, the arbalest has a bow made of sprung, layered steel. It is far stronger than any wooden bow ever made, and unlike the ballista, it is portable. It is cumbersome, but it can be carried and operated by a single man, and a skilled operator, trained in its use, can fire two bolts, with enormous power and accuracy, in a single minute, and kill armored men more than five hundred paces away. I have one of them upstairs. Would you like to see it?”

“I would.”

“Well then, in the morning, if you can haul your ancient bones from your bed, perhaps I will grace you with a demonstration. I think you’ll be amazed.”

Henry smiled. “I’ll be amazed if you manage to raise your tired carcass from slumber before I’ve dressed and broken fast. We shall see who feels more ancient come sunrise tomorrow.”

André laughed. “Aye, we’ll see. Sleep well, Father.”

He left his father with a smile, enjoying this echo of their raillery of old, but as he made his way towards his cot, he felt the painful distance that was now between them, a distance born of knowledge and secrecy.

Sir Henry thought of the Templar Knights as being the elect, and although they might arguably be so, to a minor and very limited extent, André knew that his father was wrong, and that he could never imagine that his son was already one of the true elect: an initiated brother in an ancient and secret order whose existence Sir Henry, as an outsider, could never be permitted to suspect.

Accepting that awareness, years earlier, had been a difficult task for André, eased only by the recognition that it had been shared by every individual initiate of the ancient brotherhood into which he had been inducted, or Raised as his brethren called the initiation, at the age of eighteen, even before being knighted by Duke Richard.

The brotherhood conducted its affairs beneath a shroud of inviolable secrecy, with a simply stated purpose: to safeguard and study the incalculably valuable secret that was its sole reason for being. From the moment of his Raising to a full-status brother, André had grown increasingly fascinated with the reality of that secret, so that now, endlessly enthralled by what it all entailed, he found himself thinking of varying aspects of it at different times, every day of his life, no matter what he was doing or where he might be.

For more than a millennium, ever since the end of the first century of Christianity, its presence unsuspected and undreamed of by anyone outside its own ranks, the organization, the brotherhood, had been known to successive generations of initiate brothers as the Order of Rebirth in Sion, and throughout that time its members had been studying the great body of lore that lay at the root of its being. The secret they guarded so zealously and jealously was one so old and so alien to their everyday world that it defied belief, perhaps even more so now than ever before, after eleven hundred years. It had certainly defied André’s belief when he first learned of it, and he now believed implicitly that it had affected every one of his initiate brethren, older and younger, living and dead, in the same way since time immemorial, for alien it was. Its substance was inconceivable, and awareness of its mere existence induced nausea, profound terror, and the appalling possibility of eternal damnation, with the irretrievable loss of one’s immortal soul and forfeiture of any possible hope of achieving salvation on either side of death. And so the initiates questioned it vigorously and disputed its credibility with everything—every whit of logic, intellect, and instinctual horror and distaste at their disposal— beginning as soon as the trauma of their introduction to it had begun to wear off. And every individual initiate who fought against it came to appreciate, eventually, that every single one of his brethren, over the past thousand years, had shared the same odyssey and come to harbor at the end of it, at ease with the immensity of what he had learned to be the absolute truth. And one by one the entire brotherhood, to a man, became content to dedicate the remainder of their lives to proving that truth, by proving the truth underlying the lore of the Order.

That unity of purpose had survived unbroken, André knew, until approximately sixty years earlier, in 1127, when the Order had renamed itself by dropping the word Rebirth from its title, calling itself simply the Order of Sion. Only the brothers themselves knew of the change, and they smiled with pride when they thought of it, for after a millennium, the Rebirth had been achieved when a small group of nine knights from the Languedoc area, all of them members of the brotherhood, led by a man called Hugh de Payens, had excavated under the foundations of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and, after searching diligently and in secret for eight years, had unearthed exactly what the Order’s lore had told them would be in that precise place.

Thinking about what he knew, and what his father would never know, André lay his head down that night feeling more like a stranger in his father’s home than he had ever felt before.

THE NEXT MORNING, father and son were out in the training yard between the castle and its outer walls, waiting for sunrise, neither one enthusiastic about being there or about acknowledging the other’s presence. Sir Henry stood back with the heavy arbalest in his arms while André stooped close to the front wall of the yard in the dim light of the newborn day, a quiver of heavy crossbow bolts dangling from his shoulder, and carefully examined the old and battered balk of oak used for sword practice.

“This will serve, for now,” he said, striding back to join his father. “I’ll shoot from over yonder on the other side. The light will soon be strong enough for us.” He then led the way to the far side of the yard, less than fifty paces from the thick practice post, where he took the heavy weapon from Sir Henry and proceeded to arm it. Henry could see that his son was an expert in its use, for he pressed it front down against the ground and placed his foot firmly in the stirrup at the end, then leaned forward, bracing the butt end against his belly while he used both hands to wind the pair of swivel ratchets that dragged the bowstring of thickly woven leather back, against the pull of the steel bow, until it tipped and was held in place by the notched end of the trigger that protruded through the body of the weapon, at the end of the channeled groove that would hold the feathered bolt. It was hard work, and his father admired the way André performed the task with the ease and skill of a master.

“That’s the worst part,” André said, straightening his back and wiping a trickle of sweat from his eyebrow with the back of one hand. “Now we simply load the bolt and watch what it does.”

“Is this the same device you said will throw a missile five hundred paces?”

“Aye, it is. Why do you ask?”

“Because it is less than fifty paces from here to the post you’re aiming at. What do you hope to achieve there, in order to impress me?”

“Just watch. Pass me one of those bolts.”

Henry pulled one from the quiver on the ground and straightened up slowly, one eyebrow raised as he held the missile out towards his son, who took it and placed it in the launching position.

“Aye,” André said. “Heavier than you expected, was it not? And so it should be. That thing is solid steel. Now, watch.” He raised the arbalest to his shoulder, sighted quickly with one eye closed, and squeezed the lever that operated the trigger. There was a loud, sharp snap, and Henry saw the end of the weapon leap high into the air. He grinned, meeting his son’s eye.

“Unfortunate, that. The violence of that snap back must have destroyed your aim, no?”

“No, Father.” André’s headshake was definite. “Too much power involved for that. The bolt was clear and gone long before the nose began to rise. Look.” He pointed to the post, but peer as he might, Henry could see no sign of the bolt.

“You missed the post,” he said.

“No, sir, I did not. Look more closely.”

Henry moved forward, peering towards the distant pole, his pace increasing as he approached it, and then he hesitated and stopped, unable to believe what he was seeing. The steel bolt, fifteen inches long and as thick as one of his fingers, was almost completely buried in the post, splitting the weathered wood vertically above and below its point of impact. Only the flighted end of the bolt remained visible, protruding a mere three inches. He reached out to touch it with his fingertips, then turned to his son.

“This post is solid oak.”

André nodded, smiling. “I know, Father. Solid, aged, and seasoned, and battered now beyond its capacity to withstand much more abuse. I helped select it and set it in place there, you may recall, about twelve years ago. Now ask me again about the five-hundred-pace distance involved in a long shot.”

“No need,” Sir Henry answered, shaking his head slowly. “How many of these does Richard own?”

“Nowhere near sufficient to his purposes. That’s the rub. He has very few real arbalests—this kind, I mean, with the steel bow. There are none at all outside Richard’s own domains of England and Aquitaine. Bear in mind that no one has used these weapons in fifty years, so even the art of making them is lost to most armorers. The man who made this one I use is a smith with skills that surpass belief. He makes them very well, but he appears to be the only one who can, and he cannot make large numbers of them, nor can he make them quickly. He appears to be the only one, at this point, who knows the secret of springing the metal bows. He is training others now, apprentices, but that takes time.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Plain crossbows, with bows of wood and laminated horn and sinew, are easier to come by, but even they are scarce and precious nowadays, each one worth its weight in silver, perhaps even gold. And of course Richard’s English yeomen have their yew longbows, and their bowyers continue to work as they always have.”

Henry nodded, accepting his son’s word without demur. The second Pope Innocent, using the power of his office, had banned all projectile weapons—bows and crossbows alike—fifty years earlier, and the proscription, despite its papal origins, had been unusually successful, honored and observed beyond credence by almost everyone throughout Christendom. The results of that success, inevitable and, as it was now turning out, unfortunate, had been that bowyers and fletchers everywhere outside of England and Aquitaine, deprived of purchasers for their products, had turned their skills towards other crafts, and projectile weapons had fallen into disuse. They were seldom seen nowadays, and those that did survive were ancient, worn-out things, barely capable of bringing down a hare or a deer.

The official explanation for the papal ban had been that God Himself found these weapons offensive and un-Christian, and their use against Christian warriors from that time on had been forbidden under pain of excommunication and eternal fire. But the truth underlying it—and the pragmatic reason for both the original proposal and its subsequent acceptance by the knightly class—was that the escalating power and strength of the weapons had made it possible for an untrained, landless, ragamuffin man-at-arms, or even a serf, to shoot down and kill a fully armored, highly trained knight from a distance far enough removed to offer the killer immunity.

Among the ruling heads of Christendom at the time of the proscription, only the young Henry Plantagenet, then Count of Anjou but later to become King Henry II of England, had possessed both the perspicacity and the self-sufficient defiance to ignore the papal decree from the outset, keeping the weapons in use—albeit ostensibly for hunting and training purposes—within his own territories. He recognized that these weapons were the strongest and most lethal killing machines ever developed for use by individual men in dealing death impersonally, and hence terrifyingly, from great distances and he therefore refused to deny himself the advantages they offered to him as a warrior and commander of armies. And later, adhering to his example almost inevitably, his third-born son, Richard, Count of Anjou and Poitou, and eventually Duke of his mother’s province of Aquitaine, had adopted his father’s enthusiasm with an even greater approval of his own.

It was the unexplained anomaly of that behavior— since Richard seldom aped or approved of anything his father did—that made Sir Henry now ask his son, “Why then, if he has so few of them, is he making you responsible for training men to teach other men to use them? That seems to be a waste.”

“Not at all, sir. We are producing more of them all the time. Not with bewildering speed, but even so, we will need trained men to use them. But it is the idea of the weapon, its potential for spreading awe and fear, that excites Richard. His will be the only men in all the Frankish forces who have these weapons, and that will give him an advantage over all his allies.”

“Wait! Think about what you are saying, lad. Do you honestly believe the German Redbeard will not have these weapons?”

“Barbarossa?” André shrugged. “He might … He probably will, now that I think of it, for he’s the only man in Christendom who cares as little for the Pope’s decree as Richard does. But that merely proves Richard’s correctness. Can you imagine the advantage the German would have, in lording it over all of us, had Richard no such weapons?”

“Hmm.” The evident lack of interest in Sir Henry’s grunt indicated that his thoughts were already far away from that, involved with other things. “So then, aside from that, if Barbarossa is so easily dismissed, are you telling me that Richard is merely interested in a perceived advantage over his own allies here?”

André blinked. “Pardon me, sir, but where is ‘here’? I think I may have misunderstood your question.”

“Here is here,” his father snapped, “in Christendom. My question is: what, if anything, does Richard have in mind about using these weapons in Outremer?”

“Well …” André was plainly mystified. “He will use them, most certainly—”

Henry cut him off, his voice strained, biting back a sudden, angry impatience. “I hope he will, most certainly, as you say, since the ban against them states clearly that they are forbidden solely from use against Christians. But the enemy we go to face in Outremer is most certainly not Christian, and I have been told, by several sources, that they themselves used these very weapons—bows, at any rate—to harry and destroy the last Frankish and Christian armies we deployed against them. I pray God that your Duke has a mind to that. And if that is not the case—although I admit I cannot imagine that it would be so—I will make it my concern to ensure that he is made aware of it.”

ANDRÉ LEFT TO REJOIN Sir Robert de Sablé a few days later, promising to return at the end of the month, and the next three weeks passed quickly. On the morning of the last day of the month, helmed and shielded and wearing a full hauberk of steel chain mail coat and leggings, Sir Henry made the rounds of his lands, exulting in the sheer pleasure of being who and what he was and in the semblance of youth he had regained over the previous few months of hard, determined work. He no longer had to steel himself against the pains of training, on or off the drill field, and on this particular day he carried a tilting lance in his right hand and a plain, undecorated shield on his left arm. His sword hung at his waist, the belt that supported it cinched loosely over a plain black knee-length surcoat that was covered in turn by his military mantle, with the crest of St. Clair on the back and above his left breast.

He had ridden around the full perimeter of his lands that morning, a circuit of more than fifteen miles, and he was filled with exultation as he spurred his warhorse up the slope of the last hill that would bring him within sight of his home and the high road that bordered the eastern reaches of his estate from north to south, for he had been eight hours in the saddle by then and he felt as though eight more would cause him no concern. He felt better and more carefree than he had in years, and he was looking forward with pleasure to André’s arrival that same day, after the intervening weeks spent in Angoulême, about some business set him by the knight de Sablé.

His horse surged easily up and over the crest of the hill, and Henry pulled it to a halt at the start of the downward slope on the other side, sitting easily in the saddle as he examined the scene spread out ahead of him. Half a mile away, to his left, on a rocky knoll surrounded by massive beeches that concealed an encircling river, sat his family’s stronghold, its tall, square, hundred-year-old donjon jutting up from the bare rock crest, surrounded and protected by high, thick crenellated walls that could accommodate all his tenants behind their solid bulk in times of danger, and a drawbridge across the deep river gorge that could be raised to secure the donjon itself in time of attack—although the presence of the huge beech trees proclaimed that no serious attack had taken place here since they were planted, nigh on a century earlier. From the castle gates, a hard, wide, beaten roadway struck directly for a mile to the high road that bounded his lands on the east. He turned in the saddle to look back towards the south, hoping to see André approaching from that direction, but the road was empty. Turning back, he glanced idly towards the point where the road from the north crested a distant ridge, then stood upright in his stirrups as he saw movement—increasing movement—where he had expected none.

Three mounted men, two of them recognizable as knights by their shields and plumed helms, had already crossed the ridge and were riding down the hill towards him. Behind them the third man, less richly dressed and clearly a military sub-commander, rode at the head of a strong phalanx of marching men, in ranks of six, that was only now coming into view, its files stretching back and out of sight beyond the ridge. Henry knew they could not have seen him yet, high on the side of his hill, and so he sat there and watched their approach. The tenth and last rank of the phalanx of men-at-arms crested the rise, their pike blades reflecting the light, and immediately behind them the high box of a passenger carriage came into view, rising towards the summit of the road. It was followed by another and then a third, each carriage flanked by a pair of mounted knights flaunting the colors of their individual houses like peacocks. Three more vehicles followed the carriages, heavy, flat-bottomed wagons drawn by teams of mules and piled high with cargo, securely covered and strapped down, and a second formation of infantry, the same size as the first and preceded by another pair of knights and a sub-commander, brought up the rear. By the time the last men marched into view the leaders were nigh on a half mile down the hill.

Henry was intrigued, but not alarmed by the approaching party, for despite its strength it was clearly not a warlike group. The great road they were traveling had been built hundreds of years earlier by the Romans. It ran straight south and west towards Marseille, and, much like a river of stone, collected tributaries leading from all the cities of the northern half of France, from Brittany and Normandy, Artois, and Paris itself, the home of King Philip Augustus. These travelers were obviously wealthy and important, judging by the number of vehicles and the strength of their escort, and he found himself wondering who would need six score men-at-arms, with officers and no fewer than ten fully armed knights. A senior prelate with his staff, perhaps a cardinal or an archbishop, was his first thought, or perhaps the wife of a powerful baron or a duke, with her household.

He spurred his horse gently and angled it down the hillside to where he could come within hailing distance of the cavalcade, then reined in on the edge of a coppice, casually concealed within twenty paces of the road and surprised that no one had drawn attention to his approach. He was on his own land and in full chivalric armor, so he had no fear in presenting himself, but he had misgivings about not having been seen, for that meant the men leading the advance party were riding carelessly, and coming into their view too suddenly might provoke them into overreacting, out of guilt and surprise.

Moments later, the first of the two leading knights came into view, resplendent in black and yellow trappings, and Henry’s back straightened in astonishment before his face broke into a smile. He had not seen this man in years, but he had trained him as a youth and had promoted him to be his own adjutant, fifteen years earlier.

“Sir Francis!” he called out at the top of his voice. “What would you do now were I a squad of archers instead of but one watching old man?”

The effect of his shout was salutary, for the marching men behind the two knights crashed to a halt instantly and then, at a snapped command from their mounted officer, the first four ranks spread out across the roadway. Twelve of the men knelt as they aimed their swiftly loaded crossbows towards the sound of Henry’s voice, and twelve more behind them aimed over their heads. The leading knight, whose name Henry had shouted, must have been half asleep, for he pulled sharply on the reins and brought his horse rearing up on its hind legs, then spun it completely around, and by the time the animal’s front hooves returned to earth he had his bared blade in his hand. His companion had spun away, too, and now sat his horse with his spear couched, its butt firmly gripped beneath his armpit.

“Who goes there? Show yourself!”

“Happily, Francis, if you will tell your men not to slaughter me on sight.”

The knight called Francis frowned, but he raised his sword and waved down his men, bidding them hold, then called again to Henry to come out. Henry nudged his horse forward slowly and enjoyed the amazement that dawned in Francis de Neuville’s face as he recognized the man approaching him.

“Sir Henry? Sir Henry St. Clair? Is that you?”

“Of course it is. Did you think you me a specter, in broad daylight?”

Both men slipped down from their saddles and embraced in the middle of the road. “By all the saints in Heaven, well met, Sir Henry. How long has it been, ten years? What are you doing here, so far from anywhere?”

“Twelve years, Francis, and I am riding my boundaries. This is my home. My castle is close by, over the hill there.” He waved towards it, then indicated the motionless procession stretching back up the hill. “What are you doing nowadays, escorting churchmen?”

“Churchmen?” Sir Francis looked perplexed again. “Why would you think that? There are no churchmen here.” He glanced at the other knight who had been riding with him. “William, you’ve heard me talk about Sir Henry St. Clair who was Master-at-Arms to Aquitaine when I was a boy? Well, this is the man.” As Henry and Sir William exchanged nods, Sir Francis continued, “So you live nearby? I thought somehow you were in the north, towards Burgundy.”

They were interrupted by a clatter of hooves as a trio of men came spurring down the hill to find out the cause of the delay. One of them, a black-browed giant of a man mounted on an enormous horse, scowled ferociously at Henry before turning his displeasure on Francis de Neuville, demanding in a surly, ungracious voice to know why the entire column had been brought to a standstill.

De Neuville looked at his questioner and managed to give Henry the impression that he had responded with a very Gallic shrug, although he was fully armored. “I stopped to speak to an old friend,” he said. “And I have not yet finished greeting him. Move them on, if you wish. We will draw aside and I will catch up with you when I am ready.”

“You should have done that without waiting to be told.”

De Neuville’s right eyebrow quirked as he raised his eyes to look at the mounted questioner. “And how would you know that, Mandeville? I doubt if you have ever had a friend to stop for in your entire life.” He stepped to his horse and took its reins in his hand, then beckoned with his head to Henry. “Come, Henry, we can talk over there as they pass by.”

Neither man spoke until the column had begun to move again, the scowling knight riding ahead in de Neuville’s place while his companions returned to their positions. The marching column of soldiers trudged on, ignoring the two knights by the roadside, their eyes fixed in accustomed misery on the ground stretching endlessly ahead of them.

“Who was that fellow?” Henry spoke first, his eyes on the retreating form of the big knight.

“Mandeville. Sir Humphrey Mandeville. A jackass. He’s Norman English and a lout, like most of his ilk. Ignorant and lacking in the basics of civility. Born over there, of course. He hasn’t been here three months, but believes himself superior to all of us.”

“Is he your superior?”

Sir Francis barked a laugh. “Not in any respect, although I’m sure he dreams of it. But what of you, buried here in obscurity? How long have you been here? You look fine.”

“I am now. Thriving, Francis. Who’s in the carriages?”

Sir Francis smiled, deprived of any need to answer, for the lead carriage had been drawing level with them as they spoke and now the leather curtains were pulled aside and an imperious voice called out over the noises of hooves and iron-tired wheels.

“Henry? Henry St. Clair, is that you?”

“Great God in Heaven!” The words were out before he could check them, but they went unnoticed, since the apparition in the carriage was already leaning from the window, shouting to the driver to stop, so that once again the cavalcade came to a halt.

“Well, sir? Have you no greeting for me? Have you gone mute?”

“My lady … Forgive me, my lady. I was distraught. The sight of you blinded me … I had no idea … I thought you were in England.”

“Hah! In jail, you mean. Well, I was, for years. But now I am here, at home. Come now, salute me properly and ride with me. You and you, out. Find places in the other carriages. De Neuville, take Henry’s horse. You, sir, come and pay me your respects, as true knight to his liege, then tell me what you have been doing all these years since last we met.” As her two obedient women spilled hastily from the open door, clutching helplessly at their disarrayed clothes, Sir Henry St. Clair walked forward open mouthed, still grappling with the suddenness of coming face to face again with the woman who had once been the most powerful force in Christendom, Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, former Queen of France and later of England. He climbed into the carriage obediently and sat silent, gazing at the woman across from him and caught up, as he had always been, in admiration of her forthrightness and the uncompromising, direct force she brought to every conversation.

“There now,” she said when he was seated. “That is much better, and you may close your mouth and collect yourself, Henry, for we have much to talk about and I require you to be alert and as intelligent as I recall you used to be … speaking of which, you look remarkably fine for an old man. You were much like my Henry in those days. And you look much the same today. Clean living, I dare say, for I doubt your leopard could have changed his spots. As a young man, I remember, you were remarkably toothsome, if stiff and unyielding and greatly old-fashioned in your notions of fidelity. How is Amanda, by the way?”

St. Clair finally found his tongue. “She died, my lady, nigh on two years ago.”

“Ah, I can see it in your face. You miss her yet.”

“I do, my lady. Intolerably at times, but less now than before.”

“I know. Henry is barely in his grave and yet I find that I am mourning him too, and painfully, despite having hated him so long. The old boar kept me locked up in a tower for sixteen years, can you believe that?” She snorted, something approaching a laugh. “Oh, they call it a castle, and it’s rich enough to be called luxurious, but a prison is a prison.” She hesitated, then grinned. “But then, to tell the truth, I gave him little option. I am really going to miss him. Without him, I shall have little to rail about in future.”

“So he is truly dead then, my lady? We have heard rumors, all of them conflicting, so we did not know what to believe.”

“Oh, he’s dead. You may take my word on that. He died in Chinon, on the sixth day of July, and some say he was tortured to death by Richard. That is absolutely untrue, and you may trust me on that, too. Richard is no angel, and he was ever at odds with Henry, but my son as regicide and patricide? That is simply impossible. Believe me, as his mother.”

“I do, my lady.”

“I did not doubt you would. God’s throat, Henry, it’s good to see your honest face. You’re frowning. Why? Speak out. You always did before, uncaring what I might think.”

Emboldened, St. Clair shook his head. “Thinking about my people, my lady, no more. I have been out riding since before dawn, so they will be concerned when I do not return. It came to me that I should send word to them, tell them where I am. May I ask how far we are going?”

“Not far, but you have the right of things, as usual. Use the window. Call for de Neuville.”

St. Clair wasted no time, pulling back the leather curtains and leaning out. De Neuville was riding behind the carriage and trotted forward when Henry caught his eye. Eleanor, who had been watching, leaned forward.

“Francis, how much farther will we ride?”

“Less than ten miles, my lady. The advance party should be there by now, setting up your tents.”

“Send back word to Henry’s people, telling them he is detained but will return soon. You may use my name.” When Sir Francis had saluted and wheeled away, Eleanor settled herself on her seat. “There, are you at peace now?”

“I am, my lady … and grateful. But had I known you were coming this way, you could have stayed on my lands.”

She smiled, slowly. “And bankrupted your estate? Be thankful you knew nothing, my old friend. I have more than two hundred in my train. It would have caused you nothing but grief … although frankly, had I remembered where you live, I would have used you shamelessly. Queens and royal people do that all the time.” She paused, gazing at him with eyes that were no less spectacular than he remembered them from almost three decades earlier. “Well, I have told you how fine you look, so now it is your turn. How do I seem to you, approaching my dotage? Be careful.”

Henry found it surprisingly easy to smile at this woman who, at her glittering court in Aquitaine decades earlier, had fostered the troubadours who now swarmed everywhere throughout the land, singing their songs of courtly love and spreading her personal beliefs in the duties of noble men and the supremacy of women in teaching them those duties. “Before I set eyes upon you this day, my lady, I would not have thought it possible that you could be more lovely than you were when first I met you … But you are.”

She stared at him hard, then sniffed. “You disappoint me, Henry. I am an old woman and that is grossest flattery. The Henry St. Clair I knew before would never stoop to flattery.”

“Nor would he now, my lady. I speak the simple truth.”

“Then you never did before. I never had an inkling that you thought me lovely.”

His smile broadened. “Well, your husband, Henry, if you but recall, was notably jealous. Had he suspected that I saw in you anything other than my lady liege, he would have served me my own stones, sewed in their sack.”

“Hah!” Eleanor’s laugh was startling, full bodied and rich with earthy delight. “He would have had to vie with your Amanda. One ball apiece, they would have had.”

“Aye, they would …” His own laugh subsided. “But that was long ago, when the world was young …”

“How old are you now, Henry?”

“I will be fifty within the year, my lady.”

“Why, man, you’re but a child. I am sixty and seven, and my Henry was fifty-six when he died.” She paused. “Richard is to be King of England. Did you know that?”

“Aye, my lady, I know. I saw him recently. He stopped at my door on his way to Paris, bare two months ago.”

“Did he, by God’s holy blood?” Eleanor’s face had hardened. “And why would he do that?”

Henry half shrugged, his face void of expression. “He had need of me, he said. I am to sail with him to Outremer, as Master-at-Arms.”

“Master-at—” She checked herself. “Well, he is clearly not witless, for all his other faults. Misguided, certainly, but not witless.” Her eyes transfixed him, no whit less hypnotic than they had been decades earlier, when she could beguile even a pope. “And like a fool, you intend to go. I can see it in your face. You are going with him. Why, in the name of everything that’s sane? The Holy Land is a place fit only for young men, Henry—virile, muscular idiots full of the wildness and passion of their youth and their endless lust for guts and glory … idiots and lost souls. There is no life there for women, and even less for elders without crown or miter. Believe me, I was there and saw it for myself. Why, a’ God’s name, would you even think of such folly at your age?”

He raised one hand, then let it fall to his lap. “I have no choice, my lady. It is my duty, called upon by your son.”

“Balls, Henry. God’s entrails, man, you have spent a lifetime giving naught but the finest service to our house—to me and to Henry and to Richard himself. Enough, man. You have earned your right to die at home, in your bed. You could have declined with honor. Not even Richard would be so—” She stopped suddenly, her great eyes narrowing to slits. “No, there’s more to it than that. My son manipulated you somehow. Coerced you. That is his way … But what was his lever? What hold did he find over you, to bring you to this? Tell me.”

It was a command, peremptory and not to be evaded. Henry sighed and looked away from her to where the slowly passing countryside was visible between the curtain halves, seeing the dust lie thick and heavy on the cow parsley that lined the road. “I have a son, my lady.”

“I know. I remember him as a child. His name is … André, is it not?”

He looked back into her eyes, impressed again by her seemingly limitless capacity to remember such details. “Aye, my lady, André.”

“A man now … and a weapon against you. Is that not so? Tell me.”

He told her the entire tale, up to and including Richard’s intervention and solution, and throughout the hour that took she sat silent, her eyes never leaving his as she absorbed every nuance and inflection of his voice. When he finally fell silent, she nodded and pursed her lips, thinner than he remembered them, and the gesture drew attention to the hollowed cheeks beneath the high cheekbones that had always defined her startling and still-present beauty. He waited, and watched her eyes grow softer.

“And that, of course, explains why you look so rudely healthy. You have been driving yourself these past two months to recapture your lost youth. Well, you have not suffered ill from it, old friend. So, what happened to these damnable priests? Did Richard hang them?”

“The priests were tried before the Archbishop of Tours and their guilt clearly established beyond doubt, although, lacking the authority and single-mindedness of your son in prosecuting them, that might not have come to pass so easily. They were then disowned by the Holy Church and bound over to the secular law of the Duchy of Aquitaine for execution.”

“And in the meantime you and your son were bound to Richard by unbreakable ties of gratitude and fealty …”

Henry St. Clair noticed the irony in her tone, but he paid it no attention. “Aye, my lady. By gratitude more than even fealty, if such a thing be possible.”

“Hmm …” Eleanor shifted in her seat and then reached out and pulled aside the curtain on her left, and spoke as she gazed out at the long, slanting shadows thrown by the trees on the sloping hillside above them. “It is growing late, my friend. We should be stopping soon, but it may be too late by then for you to ride back home alone. You must dine with us and return in the morning. In the meantime, come what may, I have a thought for you to dwell upon, Henry, and it is this: there has never been a tie, of any kind, that is unbreakable, given sufficient will, and power.”

She turned her eyes back on him again. “Absolve yourself of any guilt you feel, even be it born of gratitude. I will talk to Richard about this. I will not tolerate this idea of forcing you to sail to Outremer. It is a nonsense. Besides, you know my son almost as well as I do. He was yours to mold for years. He is a creature of great passions and enthusiasms, ungovernable and unpredictable to all save me, it seems.”

Sir Henry spread his hands apologetically. “My gratitude for your concern, my lady, but if it please you, I have no wish to be excused from this duty. I would far rather travel with my son to Outremer than bide alone here and fret for him. He is all I have left of family in this world, and life without him holds little attraction for me now that I am growing old. I might be a fool, as you suggest, but I would rather be an old fool near my son than be a lonely old hermit awaiting death here without him.”

Eleanor gazed at him for long moments, then nodded her head slowly. “So be it, my lord St. Clair. I will say no more on it. We are both of us too old and gray to quarrel over the manner of our deaths. The Reaper will find us wherever we may be …” She nibbled her upper lip between her teeth in a mannerism he had long forgotten, and then she added, “You know why Richard was so intent upon enrolling you, don’t you?”

When St. Clair shook his head in honest ignorance, she sniffed. “Well then you should. And take note, if it please you, that I said he was intent on it—knowing my son as I do, it would not astonish me at all to learn that he has either forgotten all about involving you or has changed his mind since then. A move’s afoot in England to have him take the Marshal of England, William Marshall, into his train as Master-at-Arms, but Richard will have none of it, and I would be surprised were it otherwise. Marshall was Henry’s man, dyed in the wool, as fierce and lifelong-loyal as a hunting hound. In Richard’s eyes, Marshall will always represent Henry himself. And, truth be said, I cannot find it in my heart to fault my son for that.”

She paused. “Besides, Marshall is all for England, first, foremost, and above all else. Richard, on the other hand, has more to govern. England is but a by-blow of his empire, and a backward one at that. God’s throat, he can barely speak the language that they growl over there.”

She stopped again, mulling her next words. “I suppose you know about Alaïs?” She read the answer in his face and grunted. “Aye, of course you do. You would need to be both blind and deaf not to know of it. It was inevitable, given what was involved, but yet I find myself feeling sympathy for the poor creature, goose though she be, for none of what happened to her lay in her control. She has been used and abused her whole life long and she never had sufficient backbone to brace herself for any of it. Myself, I would have killed someone, years ago, had any man tried to do the half to me of what was done to her. But Alaïs is not me, and now she is home in France again, disgraced, and unlikely to find another husband soon … What is it?”

“What is what, my lady?”

“Whatever is in your mind. You have a witless, gaping look about you, so spit out your thoughts and we will talk about them.”

Henry gestured mildly with one hand. “Merely surprise, my lady. I hear or see no bitterness or hatred in you when you speak of her.”

A brittle smile quirked one corner of Eleanor’s mouth. “Nor should you, for I harbor none against her. Did you not hear me when I said she has been used and abused her whole life? I have bitterness aplenty in me, Henry, make no mistake in that, but none of it is wasted on Alaïs.”

“But … she stole your husband.”

“Stole? Stole Henry Plantagenet?” Her smile spread wider but grew no warmer. “Bethink yourself, my lord St. Clair, and remember the man of whom we speak. There never was a woman born who could steal Henry Plantagenet or bend him to her will for longer than it took for him to mount her, and I include myself in that. Henry was a taker in all things carnal. He saw, he desired, he took. Oh, I was his match for many years, but as soon as my looks began to change and I began to age, he looked elsewhere. And the old goat was lusty till the day he died.

“No, Alaïs Capet did not steal my husband. Far from it. She was but one of a long line of vessels for his convenience, used and discarded when the next in line stepped forth to catch his eye. But Henry kept Alaïs closer than all the rest, because of the Vexin. Had he discarded her, it would have cost him the Vexin or, at very least, a long and brutal war to keep it. And in the end, he lost it anyway, before he died. But Alaïs was no thief. And besides, by the time Henry first set hands on her, he had already put me away. I had been locked up for years by then, because he said he couldn’t trust me to run free without fomenting plots against him with my sons. He was right, too. I can see that now. But hate Alaïs? Might as well hate the north wind for bringing down the snow as blame that child for what befell her.

“But her misfortune forced Richard’s hand to what he did, once he was named as Henry’s heir. He could hardly take Alaïs as his queen when all the world knows she spent most of her betrothal period sleeping with his father. The Church in England was scandalized and made no bones about it. They howled anathema at the very idea of such a marriage, and forbade Richard to proceed with it, under pain of excommunication. And so Richard’s hand was forced. He sent her home to her brother, Philip, as was only to be expected.”

“To be expected, perhaps, my lady, but hardly to be welcomed by her family. King Philip must have been beside himself when he learned of it.”

“Nonsense. The only thing Philip might have been beside was his bedmate of whatever day it was when the tidings reached him. Philip cares nothing for Alaïs, Henry. He never did, from the day she was born. Women have no place at all in his affections. All he cared about was regaining the Vexin, and now that he has it safe, he will use his wronged sister as a weapon against Richard for whatever advantage he can gain. That is the total of his regard for her—she is a tool for negotiations.”

“That is … inconceivable.” His voice had fallen on the last word, hushed with disbelief, but Eleanor negated his awe with a tightly controlled flick of one finger.

“Nonsense, far from it. It might be unnatural, but then, Philip Capet can hardly be called a template for Nature’s perfection.”

“Aye, I suppose that is true. But what of you, my lady? Have you been to Paris?”

“God’s throat, no! I have been in Rouen, about my own affairs, and now I am traveling home, for the first time in far too many years. I shall stay there for a while, I think, at least until Richard has been crowned in England.”

“Forgive me, my lady, but will you not go to England to witness your son’s coronation?”

She gave him a wintry little smile. “Absolutely not. Richard is more than capable of having himself crowned, and the last thing I need is to be there to witness it. That will all proceed perfectly well and naturally, and in the meantime I will take myself southward, across the Pyrenees to Navarre.” She saw the incomprehension in his eyes and added, “To Navarre, Henry … the kingdom in northern Iberia. There to find a queen for England.”

“A queen, my lady?”

She laughed outright. “Aye, a queen. My son is to be King of England and he needs a queen. England needs a queen. And I have found one in Navarre. In truth, Richard himself found her, three years ago. He met her at her father’s court and wrote to me about her then. Her name is Berengaria, daughter of King Sancho, and now that Richard is no longer betrothed, I intend to generate a marriage. Sancho should prove to be a staunch ally in this coming war, accustomed as he is to fighting off the Moors who threaten him down there in his Iberian wilderness, and I feel confident he can be persuaded to dower his daughter amply for her role as queen consort. And be assured, Richard and England will make good use of whatever he provides for their Holy War.”

“Berengaria. That is a beautiful name. But King Sancho? I have heard, it seems to me, of a Prince Sancho …”

Eleanor’s eyes sought his, narrowing intently, but she detected no awareness of her son’s rumored misconduct with the young Prince of Navarre. “The Prince is Berengaria’s brother. When his father dies, he will become the seventh king of that name. For now, he is a nonentity, but I have great hopes for his sister. I have not met her yet, but by all accounts, including my son’s own, she is a gentle, biddable creature … perhaps not greatly beautiful as we envision beauty, but regal nonetheless. So, if I can arrange the match, I will bring her to Richard before he leaves for Outremer.”

The carriage slowed and came to a swaying halt as she spoke, and a babble of voices sprang up outside, with orders and instructions being shouted on all sides. Eleanor listened for a moment, then began to gather up the few belongings scattered on either side of her as St. Clair pulled aside the curtains and peered out into the gathering dusk.

“We have arrived, obviously.”

The words had barely left her mouth when de Neuville rode up and bent forward in his saddle. “A few moments more, my lady, and you will be able to alight. Everything appears to be prepared, and by the smell of things, the cooks have done well. Rest you there for a few more moments, if you will, until your carriage can pull forward safely to your tent. A hundred paces, even less, and you will be there.” He glanced at St. Clair. “Sir Henry, I have your mount secure. My groom will care for it tonight with my own.” He saluted Eleanor and swung his horse away, and the Duchess smiled at St. Clair.

“Well, old friend, our visit is at an end—the most enjoyable part of it, at least—for when that door opens next, I must go back to being Eleanor of Aquitaine, with all the nonsense that attends upon being a Duchess restored to her holdings.” She reached across spontaneously and gripped him by the wrist. “It has been so wonderful to see you, Henry, and to spend this time with you. Men of your stamp are few and far between in my life nowadays. May God, if He is up there at all, bless you and your son in your future adventures, and may He forgive me for these next words. Put not your faith in princes. I know not who first said that, but he had the truth upon him when he did. Be careful of my son. I love him despite all he is in many ways, but I warn you as an old and trusted friend: do all you can for him but be you not too trusting, for he is governed by factors you cannot control, and guided by lights you would never wish to see or understand.” She drew her head back, her eyes narrowing, her fingers still gripping his wrist tightly. “I tell you that out of love, Henry— a woman’s love for an admirable man overcoming a mother’s love for a wayward son—but if you ever say a word of it to anyone, I shall deny I said it and wreak official retribution on you in return. You hear me?”

“I do, my lady, and I shall heed your warning, unspoken though it was.”

The carriage began to move again, lurching off the road and into the crowded meadow where the tents had been set up. Eleanor began to gather her skirts about her with one hand, bracing herself against the motion of the vehicle with the other by clinging to a braided silken cord handle on the wall by the door, until they came to a halt again.

“God’s throat, I wish you well, my friend. Now, when the brouhaha begins, get you away from here and find Brodo, my steward. Tell him I sent you and he is to feed you well and find you some place suitable to sleep. I may not have the time to speak to you again and I know you will have no wish to waste your time among the fawning, squawking fowl that flock about me everywhere I go. Eat well, sleep well, then ride home early and continue your preparations to do your duty by my son. And so farewell.”

The carriage door swung open, and Sir Henry went out first into the clustering crowd, turning to hand the Duchess down safely. He bent over her hand and pressed it to his lips, and she smiled, then tapped him on the crown with one finger of her other hand before stepping past him to be engulfed by the multitude of her admirers.