Standard of Honor

ONE

The shipboard voyage from Marseille to Sicily was miserable for everyone, and André had sailed among his peers as a Temple novice, the lowest of the least, assigned to the very bowels of an ancient, rancidsmelling vessel, to live in penitence, filth, and squalor for every moment of their confinement, save only for a single period of one hour each day when they were allowed to go up onto the deck for fresh air and exercise.

Below decks, in theory, he and his fellow novices were supposed to spend their time in prayer, listening to readings from the scriptures and from the Temple Rule, and in reciting and learning the articles and sections of the Rule itself by rote. In reality, however, all of the brothers who were to do the readings fell seasick, unable to sit still and read, head down, in the stinking, fetid, heaving hell of the lower deck. And so most of the men aboard spent the entire voyage groaning, vomiting, retching, and squirming in agony.

Although André St. Clair was spared the worst of this, by the time they dropped anchor off Messina, he had not spoken sensibly to a living soul for weeks. And when he was finally permitted to go ashore, to the Temple Commandery in Messina, he went with no idea where he might find his father. He did know, however, that Sir Robert de Sablé, the Grand Master of the King’s Fleet, was the liaison assigned to him by the Council members at Aix en Provence, the man who would direct him in all that he did on the Order of Sion’s behalf in Outremer; he knew, too, that de Sablé would know where to find Sir Henry. Accordingly, with permission from Brother Justin, he made his way directly to the Master of the King’s Fleet.

And so it was that he came to dine that night in the refectory of the great building that had been commandeered for the administrative staff of the army and the fleet, with his father, and with the King himself.

The King was restless—too long at sea, he said, and too long cloistered since then with kings, princes, and churchmen. Sir Henry smiled at hearing this, but said nothing, and Richard half turned towards him.

“Grin if you like, Henry, but I can see in your eye that you know exactly what I’m talking about. It was bad enough at sea, but ever since we landed I’ve been choking for air, surrounded by puling priests and bleating bishops. I swear by the smile of Christ, too much incense can block a man’s lungs, leave him gasping, unable to breathe. God’s balls, but I thought I might go mad out there at sea, had we been cooped aboard ship for another day. People puking and heaving everywhere, and the smell of it threatening to taint every bite of food we had. But now, thanks to the sweet and gentle Jesus, the praying and the prating seems to be behind us for a spell.

“I feel the need to bestride a horse and let God’s fresh air blow the salt out of my hair and lungs, and to forget about the tomfooleries of affairs of state for a while … Oh, I know they’re necessary and laudable for a hundred reasons, and they give the clerks and clerics all a reason to keep breathing, but they are intolerably tedious, Henry. Will you not grant me that? So! My horses were off-loaded days ago and my stable master tells me they are now recovered from the voyage and ready to be ridden, so I am taking a hunting party out at dawn, to bring back fresh, untainted meat, free of the smell of puke, for all of us. You two will join us, eh?” Both men merely nodded, not even glancing at each other. There was no point in attempting to demur or disagree once Richard Plantagenet had made up his mind on something like that.

The hunt went well, and the entire party—ten men, excluding servants—had acquitted itself well when Richard called a halt late in mid-morning and led them back towards Messina. They were less than halfway back, however, when they encountered signs of impending trouble. A messenger came galloping, his horse blowing and badly winded, to tell Richard that Philip of France had returned to Messina and was calling for an immediate parlay. That left the English King nonplussed, for Philip Augustus had sailed off for Outremer two days before in a fit of pique, angry at, and probably jealous of, the way in which the Sicilian crowds had flocked to welcome Richard’s flamboyant arrival two days after his own advent had gone unremarked. But Philip, who was notoriously prone to seasickness, had sailed into a violent storm mere hours after his departure, and it had taken his damaged ship almost two days to limp back into Messina, where he was now tapping his foot impatiently and awaiting Richard’s return.

Richard cursed under his breath, then turned to Sir Henry, who was riding at his knee. “Damn the man! Am I never to be free of his tantrums? I thought he was safely gone and out of my concerns for a while, and now he’s back, puling and whining that no one shows him the respect he demands. The damned fool simply does not know that you cannot demand respect, that you have to earn it. Blast him to Hades.”

Henry sat silent, well aware that Richard was merely giving vent to his frustration and needed no input from him, and the irascible King continued, warming to his theme and unaware, beneath everything, that Henry was even there. “God’s holy arse! As if I didn’t have enough on my platter, dealing with Tancred, the upstart idiot King of Sicily. Now there’s an ample cause to make a monarch curse his lot. Tancred the King! Tancred the Tosspot, Tancred the Pisspot, Tancred the Thief! God damn his thieving soul, I’ll have his guts dried and strung to my new arbalest.”

He looked again at Sir Henry. “I cannot rest until I deal with the upstart fool and show him what he deserves. He stole the kingdom from my sister, threw her royal arse into one of his jails, and now refuses to return her dowry, to which he has no slightest right. I swear to God, I have been thinking upon ways to gut him, and now I can’t, until I have consoled my wayward cousin Capet. Philip Augustus indeed … I’ve seen crows that are more august than this foppish Frenchman.”

Sir Henry wisely refused to meet his son’s eye when he became aware of André staring at him. Tancred had seized the throne two years earlier, upon the death of King William the Good, husband to Richard’s younger sister, Joanna Plantagenet. On mounting his new throne, and never imagining for a moment that Richard would come to Sicily under any circumstances, Tancred had imprisoned Joanna and impounded her substantial dowry. He had hastily released her several days before, immediately upon her brother’s unexpected arrival, but he had ostentatiously failed to release her dowry, and Richard had been preparing for days now to redress that situation. Within hours of disembarking, he had dispatched squadrons of elite forces, some of them English, others Aquitainians, to secure several prime locations, defensive and aggressive, surrounding Messina itself. Simultaneously, in a lightning-fast and unexpected move the previous day, he had seized and garrisoned a strong monastery at La Bagnara, on the far side of the Straits of Messina, installing his sister Joanna safely there under guard. He already had nine-tenths of a fait accompli in his hands, and the last thing he needed now was an additional degree of difficulty like the one presented by the petulant reappearance of Philip of France.

As the walls of Messina began looming in the distance, the hunting party encountered a contingent of Richard’s English yeomen who were arguing loudly and obviously highly upset. Tensions within the city, it appeared, had broken out that morning into open hostilities between the English soldiery and the local Sicilian merchants. The Sicilians traditionally disliked foreigners of any description and made no secret of their distaste. They had taken to disparaging the English soldiers as “long-tails,” implying, with no subtlety at all, that they each concealed the Devil’s tail beneath their clothing. But early that morning one English man-at-arms had argued with a baker over the price and weight of a loaf of bread, and the surrounding crowd had risen up against him, stomping the fellow to death in a demonstration of hatred that quickly escalated into a street riot in which more than a score of English soldiers had been slaughtered, their bodies thrown into public privies as an additional insult.

Richard waved Sir Henry to his side and spurred his horse towards the city, but long before they reached Messina they began to encounter increasing numbers of their own Angevin troops. The English, they said— those who had not been killed in the morning’s rioting—had been driven from the city, and the great gates had been locked to keep them out. The Griffones, the English soldiery’s own insulting name for the local Sicilians, were now lining the tops of the city walls, jeering and howling abuse at the English yeomen, whom Richard and his party could now see milling in the space before the walls.

It was plain to André, as they approached the scene, that the hundred or so English yeomen in this particular group were spoiling for revenge and waiting only for a leader to rally them to the attack, and naturally enough, they flocked around Richard when he rode over to them, expecting him to be that leader. But Richard had other concerns that ran more deeply than the emotional currents affecting his men. He stood up in his stirrups and called them to attention, then waited until they all fell silent. When he was sure he had their undivided attention, he drew his sword and sat back into his saddle, holding the magnificent weapon high.

“You all know this sword,” he told them, keeping his voice low enough that they had to strain to hear him. “Think you I would sully it by accepting insults from these louts and leaving its blade to grow dull from lack of use? We will teach these Griffones to mind their manners, lads, rest assured of that, but we must do it my way … the way I am constrained to do it. Easy enough for you brave bulls to cry out and go rushing in to fight bare handed, but I have to think and act like a king, and see it from the viewpoint of a king. So here’s what we must do.”

He swept his eyes around the crowd that stared up at him, meeting the eyes of every man there, however briefly. No one moved or made a sound, and he stood up in his stirrups again and raised his voice more strongly this time.

“There are dead Englishmen in the streets of Messina this day. Is that true?”

A massive roar from a hundred throats verified that it was, and he chopped it into silence with a downsweep of his blade. “Then, by God’s almighty beard, they shall be avenged, every man of them. Their deaths will not go by unpunished. Messina and its rabid citizens will pay dearly on behalf of every Englishman done to death in its streets this day, or I am not Richard of England! I will have justice. We will have justice! This I swear to you.”

For long moments there was a chaos of noisy approval, and not once did Richard glance at any member of his hunting party as he waited patiently for the tumult to die down. Instead, he concentrated on judging the precise moment when the noise began to fade, and raised his arm high, commanding attention as the silence fell again.

“In the meantime, I ask for your trust, and your understanding. I stand here as King of England, but you men are England, and you are here for a sworn purpose. God’s Holy Land awaits your coming, groaning beneath the feet of the infidel hordes. So think, then, upon this. It is our sacred duty to our God to come with every man intact to fight the Saracen, and every man we lose, ’twixt here and there, is one less sword to raise on God’s behalf. We could storm Messina here today, but the gates are locked and the walls are manned against us, and we have nothing here to use against them, no ladders, nothing. They, on the other hand, would meet us with torrents of arrows, spears, stones, and boiling oil. We would lose too many men, and I cannot permit that.

“But I swear to you now, by the bowels of Christ, tomorrow is a different matter. Tonight will be for talking, but if they will not see sense and make apology for what they have done, then come morning, we will be here again, but this time properly prepared, and Messina and its people will weep for today’s folly. Then we will drink Griffonish blood.”

Again he waited for the shouting to die down before continuing. “But you must know, in truth,” he told them, “I have no wish to shed another drop of English blood here in Sicily if it can be avoided.”

The last grumbling voice died away as that sank home, and Richard spoke into a profound silence. “Every single man left lying dead on the island of Sicily,” he pointed out to his quiet listeners, “is one man lost uselessly to our great and holy endeavor. So here is what I want you to do now. I want you all, every man of you, to go back to your camp and wait to hear from me. I will send word to you at dawn of what is happening. And as you go, tell everyone you meet what I have said, and turn them back with you. Above all else, trust me and believe in what I say. Now go, and God be with you.”

Richard then sat and watched the disgruntled yeomen withdraw reluctantly in the direction of their encampments. Only when the last of them had vanished from sight did he turn back to face the walls of Messina, the evidence of his fury stamped upon his face, but to André, it was also clear that he was determined to keep his passions under rein. Richard’s eyes now swept the scene in front of him, taking in the broad, open space leading to the enormous gates and then scanning the densely packed rows of abandoned stalls on each side before rising to look up at the press of figures lining the tops of the walls. Finally he spoke.

“I am going forward to the gates, to talk with the captain of the guard—assuming that there is one. Even a rabble such as this must have someone in command of a main portal. Henry, you and André will come with me, as will Baldwin, but we will not approach directly in the open. That would be tempting the Fates, inviting attack by some fool with no brains. Come, we will leave our horses over there beneath that big brown canopy where they will be safe from bowshot, and make our way from there under the protection of the market stalls—or such protection as they offer. Four of us will be adequate. An envoy and his escort. Any more than that might be provocative, and this is no time for needless provocation. The rest of you will stay here with the horses and await our return.”

They dismounted beneath the large canopy and then struck out towards the gates, moving cautiously as they wound their way among the tables, carts, and booths of the marketplace, aware that they became increasingly vulnerable to attack from above as they approached the walls. But no one molested them or hindered them, and soon they arrived in front of the gates and moved close to the portals, where they were concealed from above by the high, outthrust arch over the lintel.

It became apparent within moments, however, that there was nothing Richard or anyone else could do there. The high, featureless barrier of the oaken gates remained locked against his summons, and no one responded to his challenges to open them and talk with him. The King was literally talking to a wall, and ran a very real risk of appearing foolish and ineffectual. His face close to the wood of the doors, he inhaled deeply through his nose, then nodded tersely and accepted the inevitable.

“So be it. We can do nothing here, so we will go back. Henry and André, take the lead. I’ll follow, and Baldwin will guard our backs.”

“Aye, my lord.” André glanced at the King before starting to turn away, and his eyes rested for a moment on Baldwin of Bethune, Richard’s constant bodyguard and companion. True to his nature, the giant, taciturn knight from Anjou had said no single word that day in André’s hearing, and he said nothing now, merely drawing his sword from its sheath. André drew his own, seeing his father from the corner of his eye in the act of doing the same, and then he stepped out into plain view of those above the gates and began to lead the way back, through the market stalls, to where they had left their horses and the others of their party.

It was only as they re-entered the maze of market stalls that André felt the first awareness of danger. They had passed the same way in approaching the gates, but now something had changed. He grasped his sword more firmly and walked with extra caution, his eyes moving ceaselessly, scanning the alternating patterns of light and shadow among the stalls and canopies surrounding them. His father, sword in hand, was moving parallel to him on his right, perhaps two paces distant and half a pace behind, and Richard was almost directly at André’s back, perhaps a pace farther away. Behind Richard, André knew without looking, Baldwin would be walking backward, his eyes scanning the heights behind them for threats. André’s misgivings increased; something was wrong here.

He started to speak, to offer a warning of some kind, and had begun to turn his shoulder when a flicker of movement on his left captured his attention. He twisted immediately to look at it, tightening his grip on the hilt of his sword, but there was nothing there to see. There was only an empty stall, like all the others, save that it had a rear wall of black cloth. But as his eyes adjusted to the blackness, he saw another movement in the shadows and reacted instinctively as he recognized what he was looking at: a man, dressed completely in black, on the point of loosing a bolt from a crossbow. He shouted and flung up his sword to the side as fast as he could, intending to warn Richard and push him back, but he knew he was too late. And then he heard a ringing clang and felt an enormous concussion strike him head on. He had a flaring, light-filled vision, a momentary impression, of being hurled aside and in upon himself, and after that he knew nothing.

Afterwards, long after the event itself, when the furor and the excitement had abated and he was finally able to think about it, André St. Clair tried to string together the series of events that had led to his being where he was that morning, precisely placed to save the King’s life in the warren of litter-strewn aisles that separated the market stalls crammed into the space fronting the high, blank walls of the city of Messina. He knew that had he been one foot to either side of where he stood at the crucial moment, he would not have been able to do what he did, and Richard of England would have died there on the offal-strewn ground of the deserted marketplace.

IT TOOK SOME TIME for André St. Clair to regain awareness and when he did, he found himself in a world of agony, his right hand and arm aflame with dementing pain. André’s upflung sword had intersected the trajectory of the lethal crossbow bolt precisely, and the steel missile had struck the exact center of his blade, about a hand’s breadth beneath the cross-guard, and driven the length of it violently backward to smash into the King’s chest and shoulder and send him toppling to the ground. In the course of that violent, spinning movement, Richard’s own sword, reflexively outflung, struck the back of André’s head hard, stunning him.

André’s sword had been destroyed by the impact, its clean length twisted and warped beyond repair, and the hard-shot steel projectile, loosed from no more than a hundred feet, had driven a hole clean through the tempered, half-inch-thick blade. The King, struck by the full force of the bolt-driven blade, had been knocked senseless for a time, and the links of his light mail tunic, the only armor he had worn to the hunt, had been driven into the flesh of his chest, leaving a pattern of bruising. Unfortunately, it appeared that Sir André St. Clair’s right hand, fingers, and wrist had been broken, perhaps beyond repair, by the wrenching impact.

Within moments of the attack, Richard and his small group were surrounded by the remainder of their hunting party, and soon after that the scene of the attack was thronged with English soldiery. By the time Baldwin returned carrying the unconscious would-be assassin over his shoulder, Richard and André had been loaded onto stretchers and were being transported by wagon to the King’s own tented enclosure, where the King’s physicians busied themselves immediately in seeing to the comfort of Richard and his stout defender.

Baldwin’s interrogation of his prisoner had been brief, simplified by the fact that the fellow was no hero and had no tolerance for pain, especially when that was coolly and systematically applied by someone like the big knight from Anjou. The would-be regicide had confessed immediately, spitting out every detail of what had occurred. The man turned out to be a sergeant of some description, in the employ of King Tancred. He had somehow learned that Tancred and Richard were sharply at odds with each other and had consequently decided, without forethought, to remove Richard as a threat to his own King’s welfare.

The physicians eventually decided that nothing had been broken in St. Clair’s hand or arm after all. But they agreed that everything had been outraged and that it might be weeks, perhaps even months, before Sir André would be able to use his arm again. Every bone and tendon in his hand, wrist, and elbow, and even his shoulder, had been hugely wrenched and strained, not sufficiently so to tear the joints apart, but nearly enough so to provoke grave frowns and shaken heads among the King’s august physicians. The bruising, they agreed, would be spectacular—the entire limb had already begun to turn black—and none of them was willing to speculate on how long its effects would last, but they were absolutely in accord that the only effective healing agent they could offer would be time, in whatever quantities might be required, so they encased the knight’s arm in a rigid framework of splints, bracing the joints in such a way that they could not be moved before the physicians themselves deemed it appropriate to attempt to move them. And then, because he was in great pain, and because the King himself was greatly in the young knight’s debt, they dosed him heavily with opiates for three whole days.

WHEN ANDRÉ ST. CLAIR finally opened his eyes again and felt sane and normal, his father was sitting by his bedside, staring at him with unfocused eyes. André tried to sit up, but discovered that he could not move a muscle, and his effort produced only a grunt, which served to bring Sir Henry’s attention back to the moment at hand. The Master-at-Arms straightened up in his chair and then bent forward, frowning in concern.

“André? Are you back?” He blinked in doubt. “Are you awake?”

André forced himself to relax, not even attempting to move his head. He had closed his eyes when he grunted and now he lay still, mastering his breathing and wondering whether his voice would be as unresponsive to his mind as his body had been. But at length, when he felt ready, he worked his tongue to stir some saliva in his dry mouth and swallowed it, then spoke.

“Father? What are you doing here?” He blinked his eyes and looked about him, realizing that he was not in the Temple Commandery. “Where am I?”

“You are in King Richard’s personal quarters, in his sick bay.”

“How long have I been here?”

Sir Henry sucked in a great breath and then nodded, as though satisfied with something, although he made no attempt to answer his son’s question. “Good,” he said instead. “You are well. We knew you would be, but the King’s medical staff cared only for your comfort, so they have kept you drugged. But they took the splints off yesterday. Now you are merely bandaged.”

André counted silently to five, absorbing that. “And how long have I been here?”

“Four days since you were … wounded. Three of them spent unconscious, lashed to a special framework built for you under the direction of Lucien of Amboise, the King’s chief physician. An amazing device. Kept you completely off the ground, suspended in the air, on pulleys. I never saw anything like it.”

“Was I raving?” André was suddenly smitten with fear of what he might have said in his sickness, thoughts of the Order of Sion and its secrets whirling through his head, but his father’s eyebrows rose in astonishment.

“Raving? Not at all. You were like a dead man most of the time … most of the time when I was here at least, and I have spent much of the past few days here, with King Richard’s permission.”

“Am I still drugged?”

“No. Master Lucien estimated that you would awaken naturally …” Sir Henry looked about him in mild surprise, “about now. He said mid-morning, and that is what it is. How do you feel?”

“I can’t move.”

“No, you can’t, because you are still tied down to prevent you from moving carelessly. Apart from that, how do you feel?”

“Better than I did before. I remember vomiting … It hurt abominably. And I remember not being able to think clearly … seeing strange visions and hearing strange noises. I feel better now, and I’m relieved to know that I am not paralyzed. I thought I was, when I first awoke. Otherwise I feel well. Can you undo these ropes?”

“No ropes, they are leather straps. But I think you had better keep them on until Master Lucien decides they can be removed.” Sir Henry fell silent for a moment, and then in a voice filled with wonder he asked, “How did you do that?”

“Hmm? Do what?”

“What you did in the marketplace. How could you be that swift, to bring your blade up like that, to exactly where it needed to be?”

André turned his head slightly on the pillow until he could look directly at his father, expecting to find the older man smiling at him, teasing him, but Sir Henry’s face betrayed no humor and it was now André’s turn to frown.

“You mean blocking the shot? I could not. I didn’t do that, Father, not intentionally. It was an accident … happenstance. I moved, trying to shout a warning and wave Richard down, but I was too slow … far, far too slow. How is the King?”

Sir Henry cocked his head, wrinkling his eyes as he deliberated with himself over what his son had said, and then he murmured, “His Grace is in perfect health, and all the world believes he owes that health to the brilliance of your defense of his royal body in the face of attack.”

André shook his head slightly, rolling it gently from side to side on the pillow. “Not so. He owes it to Fortuna, the Roman goddess of chance, for it was sheer good fortune that I was there and moved when I did. I didn’t see the bolt coming. It was loosed from within thirty paces, too fast to see, and I barely saw the man who fired it … What happened to him, was he caught and killed?”

“Caught, but not killed. He was an idiot and he acted alone, thinking he would be rewarded for it by Tancred. Baldwin captured him and Richard pardoned him, gave him five silver pieces, ostensibly in gratitude for his poor aim, and let him go. Richard came out of the affair well in everyone’s eyes, Sicilians as well as our own, by forgiving the fellow and making light of his attempt. But look you …”

André waited, and when his father said no more he prompted him. “Look you what, Father? What were you going to say?”

Sir Henry shrugged. “I—I was going to say something that seemed to make no sense, but I think it needs to be said anyway. You are convinced—” He hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Yes, you are convinced that your saving the King’s life was an accident. I can see that. But I disagree. You could not have done what you did had you not been prepared to do it, poised to do something. You did what you did because you were ready to do it, to react to whatever came. I believe that just as strongly as you believe your own explanation, but what is even more important is that Richard believes it, and so does everyone else. If you get up from the bed now and declare that the entire thing was an accident and your actions were completely without merit, you will do yourself a great disservice, my son.”

“How? It seems to me to be the honorable thing to do … to speak the truth.”

“Honorable, perhaps, but foolish in this instance. Think about where we are and what lies ahead of you.” Those words struck home, although not in any way Sir Henry could have understood. “Look at the people who surround you, André, in this endeavor of ours. Do you see much there of honor? Of nobility and integrity? I think not. Not in the way you and I were taught to think of those attributes.” He shook his head in frustration. “Look, I speak here as your father who loves you, and I have nothing but your good in mind, even if I seem to be saying things. André, none of us can afford to neglect or to give up any advantage offered to us. Each of us is a single soul among an army too vast to count, marching against another army that some say outnumbers us as the grains of sand in the desert outnumber the stones …

“You have an opportunity to improve yourself here, perhaps an opportunity to outlive your fellows and survive this coming war with honor—although that is, as ever, in the hands of God. You saved the King’s life! It matters not that you believe it to have been an accident. That you were there at all was an accident. That Richard was standing where he was at that precise moment was an accident. And it was an accident that the Sicilian bowman recognized the man walking through the marketplace as the King of England. But the fact remains that when the fellow’s missile reached for the lion heart of England’s King, it struck and pierced your sword blade, punching a hole clear through the metal of your blade. Had your blade not been there in place, that bolt would have sundered Richard’s heart and ripped on through his spine. That. Is. The truth! And that truth can work to your advantage. Known as the King’s Rescuer, you will walk apart from other men. The word of your speed and skill will run ahead of you and warn lesser men to treat you with respect. But only if you keep your counsel to yourself about what you say you believe happened. No one will give a rotten fig for a common knight who had a momentary flash of good fortune then threw it away.”

“Aye, Father, I hear you …” André’s tone was sufficient to interrupt his father’s warnings, and Sir Henry fell silent, eyeing his son and waiting for him to speak. André lay thinking about what in fact lay ahead of him in Outremer, and how his task there might be simplified were men to think of him in the way his father had described.

“Very well, then, so be it. You have convinced me and I am persuaded. I will speak no more of accidents.” He paused, then grinned. “So what will happen now? Paragon or not, I am yet the meanest creature in the world: a novice brother in the Order of the Temple.”

His father smiled. “Aye, mayhap, but that will not last for long. Your hardships will be easier to bear after this, I believe.”

Flat on his back, André raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Think you so? I fancy Brother Justin, the Master of Novices, might be unimpressed by my new-won fame … Will we stay here long in Sicily, think you?”

“Well, yesterday I would have wagered that we would not stay here long. Richard has thoroughly cowed Tancred and his rabble now, and I’m sure the thought of a long sojourn in Messina, with Philip crying and whining at every imagined slight, holds no allure for him. But all of that changed this morning, with the arrival of enormous tidings. Barbarossa is dead, his army scattered. The entire world has been cast off balance. I doubt now that we will leave here before spring.”

For several moments André could not speak. Frederic Barbarossa, who had held the title of Holy Roman Emperor for more than three decades, was a leviathan among men, aged in years now but hardly less fit and battle ready than he had been when he first claimed his empire, thirty-five years earlier. At the age of sixty-odd, he had retained sufficient power and influence to recruit an army more than two hundred thousand strong and to lead it in person, overland by way of Constantinople, to Outremer. He was a legend by any standard, truly a name with which to conjure.

“Barbarossa is dead? How? What happened? Are you saying Saladin defeated him?”

His father shook his head. “No, not at all. Barbarossa never reached the Holy Land. He drowned, apparently, somewhere near Byzantium, crossing a mountain river, they say. Fell off his horse, fully armored, into icy water. The armor held him down and he was dead by the time they pulled him out. He was an old man, you know. They are saying it was the shock that killed him … the icy water …”

“Sweet Jesus!”

Sir Henry’s voice was firmer now. “We had word this morning, on a ship out of Cyprus. The vessel was crammed with Barbarossa’s people—high-ranking ones, barons and counts, lords and knights, all of them making their way homeward. Apparently the army began to break apart the moment the old man died. No one strong enough or politically acceptable enough to the others to rally the forces and keep them together. Within a week of the event—his death—his army had all but disappeared. More than two hundred thousand of them, there were, and they scattered to the winds, blown into nothingness.”

“What about his son, the Swabian fellow, Frederick? What happened to him? He would not simply have abandoned his father’s body and fled. There must be more to the tale than you are telling me.”

Sir Henry shrugged. “No one seems to know anything with certainty. No one even knows if any of the army marched on towards Outremer, but no one seems willing to believe they did.”

“Hmph. No one on that ship is willing to say otherwise. If Frederick of Swabia or any of the other leaders march on to Palestine, the ones aboard this ship, and all the others like them who ran for home, are going to look like cowards, don’t you think?”

Neither man spoke for a space then, each of them thinking through the significance of these tidings, until André said, “This alters everything.”

“How so, everything?”

“Well, not everything … But it certainly alters the political urgencies that have been causing Richard and Philip and the Pope so much concern. With Barbarossa dead, the Eastern Orthodox threat to papal rule in Jerusalem is greatly eased, which will translate directly into breathing space for us and for our armies.”

“I don’t follow you. It won’t change anything in Outremer. Conrad of Montferrat will still be at King Guy’s throat, trying to take his place.”

“Aye, but his zeal will be considerably diminished when he hears of the death of his imperial cousin. As long as he retained the threat of Barbarossa’s power to back his movements, he strutted finely. Lacking it, I think he might be more amenable to compromise than he has been. I think it certain, however, that once the word arrives in Palestine that Barbarossa is dead and his army scattered, Guy and his followers will be encouraged enough to maintain their positions and wait for Richard’s arrival, however long that takes. And therefore I can see no flaw in your thinking. We will probably stay here for the winter and sail again come spring. That will breed an entirely new set of complications, but there is nothing you or I or anyone we know can do to alter any of that, so we may as well accept it.”

Sir Henry rose. “I had best be gone. I have taken too much time lately for my own concerns. And the King will probably want to talk with me, once he has absorbed these tidings. If he does decide we are to stay here until the spring, I’ll have to set about building winter quarters for the whole damned army. Sweet Jesus, that is going to be a painful exercise, in this godforsaken place … You stay abed and set your mind to wellness. Farewell, I will see you again tomorrow.”

IT TOOK TEN FULL DAYS for the injuries to André’s hand and wrist to heal sufficiently for him to clench his fist, and even then his fingers were still too tender and the bones of his hand too sore to permit him to exert any real strength in the clench. His forearm, elbow, and shoulder were completely restored by that time, their color almost returned to normal, but his hand was still a fearsome sight, a mass of multicolored bruises.

On the fifteenth day after sustaining his injuries, he finally swung his feet off the bed, set them squarely on the floor, then pushed himself upright with the assistance of a stout stick in his left hand. He stood for a moment, weaving gently until he mastered his balance again, then took a deep breath and stepped away from the bed. That, at least, was what he attempted, but his feet did not move and he fell straight forward like a log, and had to be helped back onto his cot.

Three days later André was walking easily, but it was to be another week before his hand grew strong enough for him to hold a sword again with any kind of authority, and only then was he judged fit to be discharged from Lucien’s care and to return to the company of his fellow novices, whose training had been proceeding throughout his absence. On the morning of the day he was discharged, Richard himself thrust open the door to the room where André sat breaking his fast with two other knights, and leaned in.

“Here,” he called to André, “you will need this.” He brought up his arm in an underhand sweep, tossing a long, sheathed sword to where André was rising to his feet. André caught the weapon and held it at arm’s length, seeing that it was wrapped in a thick but supple sword belt. He turned back towards the door, but Richard had already gone, leaving the door to swing shut at his back. André looked from one of his breakfast companions to the other and saw that both were gazing at him owlishly from beneath raised eyebrows. He shrugged and grinned, a little shamefacedly.

“I lost my other one,” he said, and then he unwrapped the belt from around the sheathed weapon and drew out the blade. It was magnificent, a King’s gift, and he brought it to his eyes to admire the rippling light that played along the fold patterns of the glorious blade. It was neither elaborate nor ostentatious in its finery but simply superb in every detail, and even the heavy leather of its sheath was worked and subtly embossed, its interior of sheepskin shaved until it was no more than the suggestion of a nap. He remembered the sword he had owned before, a useful, unpretentious weapon that had given him honorable service for years, and he knew that this one was worth a hundred times as much as that had been. This was a sword fit for a king, given him by a King. He had not the slightest compunction in accepting it, for he knew that he would put it to good use in the times that lay ahead.

Returned to duty, he soon lost himself in the urgency of making up the ground he had lost to the other novices, and his injured hand hardened rapidly under the daily discipline of battle training. His days were filled once again, but far more so than ever before, with the monastic rituals and daily prayers of the Temple Rule, and when he was not praying, he was completely preoccupied with training, sharpening his fighting skills and rebuilding the strength of his sword arm. The days, weeks, and months passed by without his really being aware of their going and, more importantly, without any real awareness on his part of the world beyond the walls of the Temple Commandery. He knew of Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany at the time of their occurrences, but solely because of the liturgical impact they had upon the daily discipline of the novices. And then he lost awareness of time again until the beginning of Lent, in early March of 1191, when the normal activities of the novices were suspended in order to accommodate a three-day period of increased prayer and fasting, called a retreat. During this time the novices were expected to do nothing more than pray and meditate in penitential silence, standing or kneeling at all times, save for the few hours when they were permitted to sleep.

On the morning they were dismissed from their retreat, directly after matins and long before the first false dawn began to lighten the sky, André was summoned by Brother Justin.

With an absolutely clear conscience, aware that he had done nothing wrong, André presented himself immediately before the Master of Novices, suspecting and hoping that this might have something to do with the Order of Sion. Brother Justin appeared as ill tempered and intolerant as ever, but he said nothing disparaging, merely nodding to André and informing him without preamble that he had been instructed to send him at once to Sir Robert de Sablé, whose quarters were inside the city of Messina.

André, struck by a sudden thought, looked down at the filthy surcoat he had been wearing for months. “Should I go as I am, Brother, dressed like this?”

Justin frowned. “Aye, you should, of course you should. How else would you go? Sir Robert knows you’re a Temple novice and you have nothing to hide. Were you to go out differently, and be recognized, it could lead to the kind of questions we don’t want people asking. But take a horse from the stables. De Sablé may have other work for you. Here.” He held out his hand, bearing a small scroll that he had been holding all along. “Give this to the stable master and he’ll give you a decent mount. And if anyone asks you where you are going or what you are about, tell them you are on an errand from me to your father. That’s what is in the scroll. Now be off with you, and whatever Sir Robert may require of you, be careful.”

IT WAS CLOSE TO NOON that morning when Sir Henry St. Clair was finally able to return to his quarters, duty free for the time being, and he was surprised and pleased to find his son in his day room waiting for him, perched on the wooden bench that ran along the wall where Tomas, Sir Henry’s loyal assistant, sat permanently on guard against those who would waste the time of the Master-at-Arms. It had been several weeks since father and son had last spoken to each other, but Sir Henry wasted no time in leading André into his private chamber and closing the door firmly behind him.

“What’s wrong, Father? You look concerned.”

“I am. Why are you here? I am happy to see you, of course, but I know you must be here for some specific reason, some reason grave enough to justify your being granted leave to come a-visiting at this stage of your training.”

André’s eyebrows shot up. “How would you know about that? The details of our training are supposed to be secret.”

“Aye, like so many other things. Sit down.” As André moved to obey, taking one of the two chairs by the single large work table in the room, Sir Henry continued, “I have many friends, my son, as befits an aging man, and some of them are Knights of the Temple. As it happened, I shared a pot of ale with one after dinner a few days ago and we talked of many things, one of which was the training of this latest batch of Temple novices. He knew, of course, that you are one of those and he was merely attempting to console me for not being able to see you.” He eyed his son closely. “So come on, spit it out. Why are you here?”

“Jews, Father.” André spoke the word bluntly, deliberately, watching to see what effect it might have on his father, but whatever reaction he might have anticipated, he received nothing. Sir Henry merely blinked, then sat down across the table.

“What about them?”

“That is why I am here.”

“You make no sense, son.”

“No, Father, I fear I do, to my own ears at least. Do you recall the last time that we spoke of Jews and of the King’s regard for them?” He did not wait for his father’s response. “I have come here directly from Sir Robert de Sablé, and at his urging. He sent for me this morning and had me released from my duties for the day, purely so that he could pass along to you, through me, his grave concern for your safety.”

When André paused, Sir Henry spoke out. “Well, while I am duly grateful for Sir Robert’s concern for my safety and well-being, I believe that what I do and how I behave has nothing at all to do with him and should be beneath his attention. Be so good as to pass that information along to him, with my gratitude, of course.”

“No, Father, with respect, I will do no such thing. You are being obtuse. Sir Robert has no interest in chiding you for misbehavior. He fears for your welfare, because he sincerely believes it to be in the interests of the armies and the venture upon which we are engaged. He could have sent a warning to you by other means, but he chose to communicate through me for a variety of reasons, the very least of which is that he and I are friends. But the issues that concern him in this are far greater than any personal friendship.”

Sir Henry frowned slightly. “Issues such as what?”

“Policy, ambitions, politics, and schemes. William Marshall, Marshal of England, and Humphrey, Baron of Sheffield.”

Sir Henry leaned an elbow on the table’s edge, tapping his pursed lips with two fingers. “Explain.”

“Do I need to, Father? It took no great understanding when it was explained to me this morning. Richard is King of England, but he is also Duke of Aquitaine and of Normandy and Count of Anjou, Poitou, Brittany, and a host of other territories, none of which are English and all of which have offered up their men to this mission to free Outremer. You are, by title, the King’s Master-at-Arms, but in reality you are Master-at-Arms to your liege lord Richard, Duke of Aquitaine, and as such you represent in your very person the identities and the hopes of every soldier in the armies of Richard and Philip who is not English. If you fall from favor and are dismissed, then William Marshall will assume your place and this entire army will fall under English control. That must not be permitted to happen.”

Sir Henry nodded slowly, agreeing but conceding nothing. “I can understand how that might be of concern, but what of Humphrey of Sheffield?”

“I am surprised that you would even ask. I know the fellow, Father. He is a gross, slovenly pig, without honor and unworthy of his knighthood, let alone a barony. It has come to Sir Robert’s attention, from a source he claims is unquestionably truthful and well informed, that you have crossed paths with this swine … and have, in fact, come nigh to crossing blades with him.”

Sir Henry shook his head abruptly. “Not so. I do not like the man, but I have had no active quarrel with him.”

“Can you be sure of that, Father? Would he agree? The information that Sir Robert received was that you had come to Humphrey’s attention, unpleasantly, over the matter of a certain Jew called Simeon, here in Messina. Simeon was a well-known figure in this city, apparently, a merchant but not a money lender, but he disappeared from sight, with his entire family, at an inopportune moment and has not been seen since.”

“An inopportune moment for whom?”

“For Sheffield. Who else would care? Humphrey is a rabid, dedicated Jew hater. It is one of the things, and probably the single most significant thing, that enables him to maintain the friendship, if such it is, that he shares with Richard. It is Humphrey’s responsibility, it seems— although it is something not openly acknowledged—to provide Jews for Richard’s dinner entertainment spectacles. According to Sir Robert’s informant, this Simeon had been earmarked for one such spectacle, after an altercation with one of Humphrey’s associates over a debt. But he vanished, as I said, along with his family. Your name came up in connection with the disappearance, something about a warning in advance of a nocturnal visit from Baron Sheffield’s men-at-arms. Humphrey believed the report and took it to the King. Fortunately for all of us, the King was … preoccupied and did not have time to listen to the report. In the meantime, Sir Robert, having heard of the matter from his own spies, took it upon himself to intervene, providing an unsolicited explanation for your conduct that was a direct contradiction of the tale Baron Humphrey had received. The Baron, who is deeply in Sir Robert’s debt and had no reason to suspect the Master of the Fleet would even know you, believed what he was told, and so nothing more will come of it. But Sir Robert wishes you to know what happened, and while he would not presume to tell you how to behave, he begs that you will at least be more circumspect in future.”

Sir Henry sat silent for long moments, digesting what André had said, and then he inhaled deeply and nodded, lowering his chin to his chest and pinching his lips between two finger ends. Finally the Master-at-Arms looked up. “So be it. I acknowledge it. I acted rashly, although it did not seem so at the time. In future I will be more … careful. But was it truly only fear for my political position that made your friend act as he did?”

“Can you doubt it, Father? Think about what is entailed.”

“I have, and he is correct. And seen from that viewpoint, my responsibilities are larger and more complex than I had believed. I shall be more careful from now on.”

“No, Father. If it pleases you, I would like you to stay away from any involvement with Jews in future. Everything surrounding them is fraught with danger amounting to insanity.”

“Aye, but only because our King chooses to make it so.”

“Our King and his bishops. The Church condones it.”

“My son, the Church fosters it. But should ordinary men of goodwill then hide their heads and condone it, too, giving tacit consent to atrocities that would disgust the gentle Jesus in whom we are taught to believe?” He shook his head, once and with finality. “Do not ask me to do that, André. It sits well with neither my nature nor my honor, so we will speak no more of it. You have delivered your message, and I have heeded it.” He hesitated, then added, “You said your friend told you the King was preoccupied and did not hear Sheffield’s report, but did he say why? When did this happen?”

“I don’t know, Father. I did not think to ask. I was too worried about the ramifications of what he was saying. But looking back on it now, on the urgency Sir Robert betrayed, I have the distinct impression that it had all happened very recently.”

“Hmm. Within the past few days. It had to be then.” He checked himself, cocking his head at his son. “Have you heard about the sodomy confessions? No, I can see you haven’t. There’s probably much good to be gained from living the cloistered life.” He thought for a moment, then went on. “Less than three weeks ago Richard decided, for reasons known only to himself and God, to confess to being a homosexual deviant. He cloistered himself with an entire convocation of bishops in a private chapel here in Messina, belonging to a local dignitary, and there, amid clouds of incense, he made a full and purportedly public confession of his addiction to sodomy, begging forgiveness of God and the Holy Church and supplicating the strength to resist temptation and mend his lustful, impious, and unnatural ways henceforth. Amen.”

“My God! This is not a jest, is it? He actually did that?”

“He did. I thought at first that might have been why he was preoccupied and unable to deal with Sheffield’s report, but then I realized that the Simeon affair came after that. So de Sablé must have been describing the events of the past few days when he spoke of Richard’s preoccupation. Which means Eleanor’s arrival, four days ago.”

“Eleanor’s arrival? The Duchess Eleanor, the King’s mother? Is she here in Sicily?”

“She is. Arrived the day before yesterday, and the place has been buzzing like a hive ever since. You and your fellow novices must be the only people in Sicily not to know.”

“But why? What is she doing here? I thought she had returned to England.”

“No, nor will she. She is back living in Aquitaine, in Rouen and sometimes in Chinon, which she always loved. She merely came here to deliver a gift to Richard.”

“A gift.” André’s voice was flat, his face blank as he sought to make sense of what he had just heard. “What kind of gift would bring her all the way here to Sicily to deliver it herself?”

“The gift she was going to find for him when last I saw her. A wife.”

The words dropped like bricks into a still pond, and for a long time neither man spoke.

“A … wife …” André’s voice was much lower now, deliberately hushed, and his father’s response matched his out of sheer caution, even though the heavy doors at his back were solidly shut.

“Aye, from Navarre, south of the Pyrenees. The Princess Berengaria. Eleanor went to her father’s court and sued for the match in person, successfully. King Sancho will be a strong ally for Richard. Years of experience fighting the Moors down there in Spain.”

“Aye, but … This King, Sancho you said? Has he no knowledge of … of what Richard is? What hope they to achieve by this, and how is Richard reacting?”

“He appears to be reacting very well, to most people’s surprise. Fortuitous timing, I suspect, considering how fresh he is from being absolved and forgiven for all the abominations of his former ways. With that all comfortably behind him, I am quite sure he sees himself reborn and newly disposed towards cohabitation and fatherhood. But in truth, an uncharitable soul might wonder whether our monarch could have heard, say a month or so previously, that his mother was on her way to visit him with bride in tow, and decided to prepare himself accordingly.”

“Yes, perhaps he did. Nothing would surprise me in that. But in God’s name, Father, the mere idea! You know Richard even better than I do. So are we now to give credence, all of us, thanks solely to the verbal blessings and forgiveness of a chapel full of bishops, to the public pretense of Richard Plantagenet married, and a paterfamilias?”

“Unimportant whether you or I believe or not, André. It will be done, be assured. England will have a Queen and perhaps in the course of time a Prince Royal, and Richard will be seen to be a man. There is no contesting the fact that an heir for England is Richard’s first priority, overarching all other responsibilities. If he fails to come up with a son, the throne will go to his useless brother John. And even I, who have spent less than a single month in England and have no wish to return—even I know that to be a prospect no one wishes to consider.”

“Ye gods!” André was shaking his head. “This is the King who would not even have a woman at his coronation dinner! And now he is to surround himself voluntarily with women. Eleanor, Joanna, and this, what’s her name, Berengoria? Mother, sister, and wife. They will drive him insane.”

“Her name is Berengaria, and it is my understanding that she is a quiet thing, demure and … complacent.”

“Complacent? I hope she is, for by all the gods, she will need to be.”

“Besides, Eleanor is leaving for home again in a few days—actually for Rome first, then Rouen. Richard made sure of that with no loss of time. And Joanna can be malleable enough, with proper treatment. She will cause no trouble, lacking her mother’s presence. Besides, she’ll be company for the poor bride once the husband rides off to war.”

“So when is the wedding to be?”

“Not during Lent, that much we can rely on. But after that, who knows? The bridal party is all here, although I doubt that Philip Augustus will attend, and there is a profusion of sanctified bishops ready and salivating at the thought of pontificating when Richard Plantagenet is brought back into the fold of sexual orthodoxy. God help us all.”

“Will you attend?”

“Of course I will. I shall have no choice, as Master-at-Arms. But you should be a Templar knight by then, so you will not be expected to be there.”

André gave a little grin. “Perhaps not, but we will have to wait and see. How is Philip taking all this, really? Do you know? He must be out of countenance, his lover to be wed and his sister spurned at the same time, despite a bishopric full of holy oaths to the contrary.”

“Aye, as you might expect, he is not happy. But Philip has been a king all his life, and thus he is a pragmatist. He will learn to live with the realities involved.”

“Aye, no doubt … and with the unrealities as well.” He twisted his face into a grimace. “So be it, then. There’s nothing any of us can do, as you say. But I do have your promise to be more careful in your dealings with the Jew baiters?” He returned his father’s nod and stood up. “Excellent, then. I shall return to Sir Robert and tell him about this, and then I should return to the commandery. Fare thee well, Father. I hope to see you again soon.” He stepped forward to embrace his father, but Sir Henry grasped him by the upper arms, staring into his eyes.

“When will your novitiate be complete? When will you join the Order?”

André smiled. “I really don’t know, Father. They don’t tell you things like that. They won’t even unbend sufficiently to tell you if you will join the Order. But I can promise you that, like the King’s wedding, it won’t be before Easter, because it can’t happen during Lent. In the meantime, I fret sometimes about the vows …” His grin widened as he watched Sir Henry’s eyes, and before the older knight could frame the question springing to his lips, André added, “The poverty and obedience are simple enough. Those are part of the life I have chosen, but the chastity worries me, because I did not choose that …” He was being facetious, but his humor became tinged with chagrin when he saw that his father had taken him literally. He grimaced and took his father’s hand again, holding it in both of his. “That was a jest, Father. A poor one, I see now, but I was trying to make you smile.

“And now I must go. Until next time, stay well. And remember, no more foolish risks over Jews. Risks I cannot forbid you, but foolishness is governable, is it not? Adieu.”