Standard of Honor

THREE

Jean Pierre Tournedos had been born into a mercantile family that owned a modest fleet of trading ships, and at the age of twenty-six was invited to join the Order of the Temple as an associate brother and to dedicate his knowledge and his exceptional skills, at an appropriate price, to the design and construction of a prototype ship that would permit the rapidly expanding Order to move away from its reliance on land bases. Working with a small group of colleagues, Tournedos designed a large vessel with the capacity to ship both men and cargo, including livestock. But what made the ship unique was that it was designed to house a highly disciplined crew of fighting monks, accustomed to living in penitential austerity, in close quarters that normal mariners would not have tolerated. Manned by such a highly disciplined and religiously obedient crew, the vessel was also capable of serving as a ship of war should the need arise, with triple banks of oars, fighting platforms, and a metal-clad ramming prow. It also incorporated specific modifications that permitted it to function as a monastic vessel at times, although that concept, of a monastic ship, was as revolutionary in its time as the notion of military monks had been ninety years earlier.

Since adherence to the Rule was all-important in the daily life of the brethren, additional space had been created within the hull, directly below the rowing deck, for the brethren of the Order to assemble for common prayers and services. It was a cramped and crabbed space, entirely lacking in comfort, and only along the narrow central aisle could a man stand upright without stooping, but the men who would use this space had no regard for physical comfort and would gladly offer up their discomfort to God, in penitence. The central aisle offered the sole access to the space. The brethren would enter by the aisle, then crawl or climb to their assigned places in the spaces that flanked it, where they would sleep at nights, and at other times sit, and sometimes kneel, for the prayers and readings of the daily Rule. That commitment was extraordinary at a time when every inch of shipboard space was precious, but it had been deemed necessary for the spiritual and physical welfare of the monks who would be crewing the vessel.

In the years since then, three sister ships had been built, and five more were now in preparation, to the same design, forming what the Templars now called the Mediterranean squadron, based in the port of Brindisi, on the outermost heel of the Italian mainland. One of the earliest preceptories built by the Order in Italy, Brindisi had in recent years begun to assume significant importance to the emerging nautical interests within the Temple Order, situated as it was within easy sailing distance of a cluster of shipbuilding yards that had been there, some said, since Roman times. The vessels they produced were expensive and highly prized.

Tournedos, now the squadron’s commodore, had sailed south and west from Brindisi to Messina, to join the great fleet assembled by Richard of England for the expedition to the Holy Land, and in Messina he welcomed aboard his own vessel the senior members of the Order’s latest reinforcing expedition to Outremer, including some of the highest-ranking Templars in all of Christendom, all of whom were eager to inspect the ships of which they had heard so much. And at the same time, they took aboard the newest crop of reinforcements, including the least of the Temple’s least—the latest contingent of low-level recruits and novices.

Now Tournedos stood on the stern deck of his ship, looking about him at the surrounding scene. They had anchored that morning, after entering Limassol on a rising tide, and the island of Cyprus towered above him, its rugged hills appearing to offer no hint of warmth or refuge. Gazing at the scene and at the port, Tournedos, who had somehow managed to visit the island only twice before in all his years of sailing, decided yet again that the island of Cyprus, beautiful as it might be, held no allure at all for him. He turned his eyes away and looked to his right, where, perhaps a quarter of a land mile distant but no closer to the shore, two massive ships, the dromons he had been sent to find and protect, dwarfed his own. Between him and the dromons, moving rapidly under oars towards the closer of the two ships, a remarkable young man, of whose existence Tournedos had been unaware until the previous day, stood in the stern of his ship’s boat, gazing straight ahead to where an access ramp was being lowered from one of the great ships to await his arrival. Tournedos scratched absently at his bearded cheek with the tip of one finger, then turned again to look at the outlying anchorage behind him, where three more newcomers were now arriving. He scanned them once again, for perhaps the sixth time since being warned of their approach, looking for symbols by which to identify them. They were Christian ships, easily distinguishable from the low, rakish galleys used by Muslim pirates, and they had approached from the east, perhaps from Outremer itself, which would explain his inability to identify them. He sniffed, knowing he would find out who they were within the hour or soon thereafter, and turned away again to squint at the high, densely packed buildings surrounding the harborfront of Limassol.

According to what Tournedos had been told, the so-called Emperor of this place, Isaac Comnenus, had misplayed a minor opportunity for advantage into a looming disaster for himself and his countrymen. With an option plainly open to him to win favor and acclaim when the survivors of the great storm were blown into his harbor seeking assistance, Comnenus had chosen instead to abuse, affront, and insult the future Queen of England and her companion, the former Queen of Sicily, thereby giving intolerable offense to the implacable man who was husband-to-be to the first and brother to the second. Richard of England, the man becoming increasingly known as the Lionheart, had been much closer to hand than the hapless and badly informed Isaac had ever imagined, and now Isaac must pay for his folly and greed. Richard’s fleet, bearing his entire army, would arrive in Limassol the following day, and when it did, and the army disembarked, life would become extremely interesting for everyone in the region, and most particularly for the self-styled Emperor of Cyprus.

ANDRÉ ST. CLAIR STOOD nervously, poised on his toes and ready to leap as soon as the man in the prow of his boat gave the word. Close by him, though the space between it and him varied constantly in distance, height, and angle, a sloping platform dangled dangerously, supported by hanging chains and strapped underfoot with wooden cleats to make it easier to climb up its steep incline. André swallowed hard and flexed his fingers, his eyes flickering briefly again towards the helmsman handling the tiller expertly and easily in the stern.

“Wait for it,” the big man growled, maintaining his pressure on the tiller while keeping his eye on the end of the hanging platform. “It’s not going anywhere without you. Wait you … Wait … There … Now!”

André jumped, his feet landing solidly on the ramp while his left hand clamped in a firm grip on the chain that served as a hand rail. He released his breath explosively but without changing the expression on his face, then looked back at the boat master, nodding his thanks. As he looked away again, raising his eyes, the ship above him, the largest André had ever seen, leaned sideways on a swell, looming over him, and he felt his gorge threaten to rise. He swallowed it down determinedly and threw himself into the task of pulling himself up the steep surface, making sure that his boots were firmly anchored against the wooden cross-straps before he took each step, for the wooden ramp was wet and slippery and he had no wish to slide down into the sea wearing a full suit of mail. Halfway up the great, swelling side of the dromon, where the ramp folded back upon itself for the second, almost level segment of the climb, he found a flat, hinged platform between the flights and stopped to make sure that he would be presentable when he emerged onto the vessel’s deck. Richard had not quite warned him about that, not in so many words, but he had mentioned the mid-climb platform and observed that it seemed to be a natural place to pause and make sure one’s appearance was … appropriate … before proceeding to the deck. Ladies were temperamental creatures and much influenced by appearances, had seemed to be his message, and André had been attuned to it.

While he worked at straightening his clothing, a niggling voice somewhere far at the back of his mind murmured about the sin of personal vanity and the scandalous impropriety of any Temple brother having any dealings with women of any description. He knew that when the time came to take his final vows, he would be required to abjure all contact with women. For the time being, however, he was content to bear in mind that he was not yet a Temple Knight; that he was still answerable to, and bound to obey, the wishes of his liege, Duke Richard; and that there would be time enough in future for penitence and self-denial. He therefore twisted his shoulders and adjusted his mantle until it hung comfortably, and as he did so, he, too, eyed the three new vessels that had entered the anchorage. He knew none of them, but did not expect to. His knowledge of ships and shipping extended to whatever deck lay beneath his feet at any time, and there it ended. André St. Clair was not and would never be a seaman. He knew that every seasoned eye on every ship in the anchorage would be trained on the newcomers, and they would be either welcomed in or driven off. Either way, it was of no immediate concern to him.

His mantle finally settled comfortably about his shoulders, he set about the climb again, rising swiftly to the gate at the top of the ramp, where he was awaited by a brightly dressed group of five dignitaries, three of whom were more richly attired than the others, and all of whom regarded him as though they had found a rat crawling around the edges of their deck. One of the three best dressed would, André knew, be Sir Richard de Bruce, the Norman-English officer in command of the three dromons as a group. The other two, he suspected, would be the individual captains of the two remaining vessels, and the two less brightly caparisoned officers would be senior lieutenants. A swift scan of the deck showed him that there were no women in sight. He stepped forward immediately, through the gate that one of the common seamen was holding open for him. He made a choice instinctually, choosing the tallest and haughtiest-looking of the group, and drew himself to attention, saluting as he did so.

“Sir Richard de Bruce? I bring you greetings from King Richard and written personal greetings for his betrothed, the Princess Berengaria, and for his beloved sister Joanna, Queen of Sicily. My name is André St. Clair, and I am a knight of Poitou, liege to Richard as both Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou.”

The introductions and amenities dealt with as briefly as possible, de Bruce, the type of self-important martinet who set St. Clair’s teeth on edge, informed André in clipped, formal words that the ladies had retired to their quarters for their midday meal, and that he would inform them of Sir André’s arrival. In the meantime, he directed one of the senior lieutenants, pointing with the hand that held his letter from the King, to conduct Sir André to a sheltered spot on the rear deck outside the superstructure, where he could sit on a pawl and collect himself in privacy while he awaited his summons to attend upon the ladies. Mindful of Richard’s admonition, André said nothing more, merely nodding formally and turning his back on de Bruce and his group to follow the ship’s smirking lieutenant to the spot indicated, where he stood looking out towards the three newly arrived ships, purging his anger at the insult of his reception by reviewing the conversation he had had the previous day with Richard Plantagenet.

Richard had summoned André to the stem deck of his galley—a place where they apparently might not be overheard. There he had sat in his shirtsleeves, working busily. He needed someone, he explained, for a task that he could not trust to any man who might think to cross him.

“And then I remembered you,” he said, “praying in the solitude of your penurious cell aboard one of the Temple ships.” His face split in a grin and his voice rose. “I know your sword arm is well enough by now, but are your knees yet functioning, after being bent in prayer on a wooden floor for so long?”

He did not wait for—and clearly did not expect—an answer, but proceeded directly to say that he would be sending André with the Temple squadron to Limassol in Cyprus. Richard and the others would follow with the tide, a day or more later.

“Limassol is where my dromons ended up, with all their cargo: my wife-to-be, my sister, and my war chest—all the moneys I have raised to fight this war. All of them there, at the mercy of this demented Emperor.”

“Emperor, my liege?”

“Aye, some petty fool of a ruler in Cyprus, a Byzantine who stole the throne, is threatening the safety of my women and has laid his thieving hands upon the Great Seal of England, wearing it around his neck like a gewgaw. I am sailing to root him out and kick his smelly arse out of Cyprus and into the sea. I need speed, and the Marshal of the Temple, Etienne de Troyes, agreed to let me borrow his four fast ships— of course, only after I’d mentioned the danger to our war chest, and how the loss of it would severely curtail our campaign in the Holy Land. For their part, the Templars, bound by their duty, will guard the ladies— guard them to the death—and they will keep their holy distance, terrified of contamination.

“André, I must be wary at all times of those with whom I deal. The potential for treachery and double dealings, for secretive and surreptitious alliances and plots among all this upheaval is enormous. Philip alone, I know, would be willing to pay anything to anyone, if they would undertake to destroy the possibility of this marriage my mother has contracted between England and Navarre. And he is but one of the enemies I have among our friends. Even the Marshal of the Temple must be suspect in my eyes in this affair, because his sworn loyalty is to the Pope, and the Pope would dearly love to lay his hands upon some means to keep England without an heir, and consequently at the mercy of France and Philip Capet and his staunch ally, Holy Mother Church. Rome has not yet forgiven me for my father’s sin in killing Thomas Becket. And Philip will never forgive me for rejecting him … him first, and then his sorry sister.”

He sighed. “I can take no other man’s word for what has happened or for what is going on, because the stakes involved are so enormous that I will always wonder if what I am being told is truth, or whether someone has been suborned in order to set me on an errant course. You will do no such thing. It does not lie within your nature.” He picked up two folded and sealed packages that lay on the far corner of his table and tossed them, one after the other, to André. “These are for Joanna and the Princess Berengaria. Joanna’s is the one marked with the pen stroke by the seal. I want you to take these to their dromon immediately and deliver each one personally to the lady for whom it is written. Trust no one with that task. Do it yourself. Request an audience with both ladies in my name, then remain with them and wait for their responses, for I have asked each of them different questions and made it clear that I will be relying heavily upon the accuracy of their answers.

“I do not know the Princess well, but my sister Joanna was never anyone’s fool, even as a bosomless chit of a girl. Indeed she is more her mother’s child than any other of our brood. If there is something rotting around her, Joanna will have nosed it out and dealt with it by now. She will have information and opinions that will be invaluable to me. You read and write, too. I remembered that with much pleasure. It triples and quintuples your value in this. Listen closely to all Joanna has to say, and then make notes of all you judge to be important.”

André would also bear a letter to Sir Richard de Bruce, whom Richard described as “a good seaman and an able commander, but distant, unfriendly, and disdainful.” De Bruce would be instructed to give André a complete report and assessment of the situation in Cyprus, and to provide him with money, which Richard believed André might need for the purpose of bribery in order to gather information.

“When I arrive in Limassol, I want you there, waiting for me. You and I will then withdraw together and you will inform me of everything you have learned. Everything, André. Is that clear? Do you understand exactly what I require?”

André nodded.

“And now, by God’s Holy guts, I have to meet with bishops, who will wish to pray, no doubt, for the safety of my future bride.” He paused, and then a grin of pure devilishness transformed his face. “I will confess to you, but never to them, that I thought, last night, about my betrothed’s safety. Were she to be ravished and returned to me fruitfully pregnant, it might save me a deal of unpleasantness, would you not agree?” He blinked then, owlishly, his smile fading but not disappearing. “No, apparently you would not. Very well, Sir André, get you gone, and keep your mouth shut, your ears open, and your wits about you.” André had saluted and left then, striving manfully to conceal the shock he had felt at Richard’s cynical remarks about his future bride’s safety, and telling himself that the King had meant not a word of it.

When André was summoned at last, he was taken to a doorway in the stern of the great ship, where a guard knocked and then stepped aside. André moved into his place as the door opened inwards and an armored guard peered out at him and then moved aside in turn, beckoning him to enter. The doorway was low, and André had to stoop to pass within it, squeezing past the guard, who sucked in his paunch and tried to make himself as small as he could while the visitor passed him. Once inside, André was astonished to realize that the chamber he had entered was tiny and that the low ceiling barely afforded him the space to stand upright. It was dark in there, too, the only natural illumination being a grid pattern of bright beams of sunlight that painted the floor in checkered squares from an overhead hatch, making the dark shadows even darker by comparison. The few smoky lamps he could see mounted on brackets fastened to the ship’s beams did little to dispel the gloom. He sensed rather than saw human shapes, female shapes, on both sides of him and counted three in a dark corner to his right and two on his left. Two ladies sat at a small table that held the remnants of a simple meal. He could see from their attitude that both of them were looking at him, so he bowed deeply and addressed himself to both of them.

“I pray you will forgive me, ladies, for I know not which of you is which and the light in here is very poor. My name is André St. Clair, knight of Poitou, and I bring you greetings and written words from my liege lord King Richard, who sent me here in haste to promise you that he is coming, with the remainder of his fleet, and will be here tomorrow to speak with you in person.”

“Ooh, la! Richard has found himself a clever one.” The speaker was the woman on his right, and something in the tone of her voice, a measure of maturity that he would not have expected in the young Princess, led him to wager with himself that this was Joanna Plantagenet. He stared hard into the gloomy corner where she sat and decided to take a risk of appearing stupid, rather than to stand there mumchance like an awkward boy. He smiled, showing his teeth, and raised an eyebrow. “Clever, my lady? May I ask what prompts you to think that?”

“Why, the cunning way you evaded the trap of having to guess at which of us was which, for that was a guessing game you could not have won without offending one or both of us. St. Clair, you say? Are you related to Sir Henry, who was Master-at-Arms to my mother?”

“I am, my lady. He is my father.”

“Then I know you, knew you, when you were a child. Step closer.”

André did so, relieved to know that he had guessed correctly, and as he did so, Joanna raised the flimsy, dark-colored veil that had obscured her features, and her face came into sight, almost shining in the gloom surrounding it. He remembered her, too, from his childhood, for she had been several years older than he was, and from the time he was a toddler until he was old enough to run away from them and hide, she and her friends had used him mercilessly in their games whenever they could. He had never thought of her in those days as being comely, but now he realized that she must have been, and he had simply been too young to notice. Her face, he saw now, was striking, and he recalled vaguely that men had once called her beautiful, before she wed, but the word that had sprung into his mind upon first seeing her face unveiled was strength.

She wore a white wimple that concealed her hair and outlined her face, and the veil over that, now thrown back behind her head, was secured by an ornate comb. Framed by the edges of the wimple, her forehead was broad and high and unlined—she was barely thirty, he knew, several years younger than her brother Richard— and her brows and lashes were pale golden, framing eyes that were deep blue above high, tight-sculpted cheekbones, a straight, strong nose, and a wide and mobile mouth. But there were tiny crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes and at the sides of her mouth, and he remembered hearing that she had been a well-wed Queen, although her elderly husband had been unable to breed a son upon her. She was now a widow of several years’ standing.

All of this passed through his mind as she beckoned him to lean closer, and he realized that she was scanning his face as closely as he had hers. But then she nodded very slightly and the skin across her cheeks and below her eyes seemed to go smooth, as though she had somehow tightened it deliberately. “I remember you. You were a very pretty little boy and you have grown into a very pretty man.”

There was something in her voice, an inflection of some kind, that struck André as odd, but he disregarded it as she continued speaking. “You have not yet met my sister-to-be, have you? Berengaria, this is Sir André St. Clair, one of Richard’s … friends.” Again he caught that strange tone, a note approaching disdain, but this time, as he turned with a smile to face Berengaria, the implications of it washed over him, so that he felt himself flushing with mortification all the way from the back of his neck. He froze, the smile dying on his lips, and then straightened angrily, stung beyond prudence.

“Madam, you wrong me,” he snapped, outraged that anyone would think to classify him as one of the effete group of dandies that clustered around the King. “Your brother is my liege lord and I, his loyal vassal. He honors me with his trust, upon occasion, and I find no dishonor in the fact that he regards me as a friend. But I am not one of his … friends.” The emphasis he placed on that last word left no possibility for error in interpreting what he meant, and he saw Joanna Plantagenet draw back sharply as though in reaction to a sudden threat. Only then, too late, did he recognize the rashness as well as the harshness of his reaction to her comment and realize that he might have misinterpreted her meaning, but the damage had been done. He braced himself for her rebuke, but for several moments she said nothing at all, merely looking at him closely, a tiny frown between her brows.

Joanna drew herself upright in her chair. “Forgive me, Sir André.”

Surprised by the mildness and forbearance in her reaction, André bent forward from the waist, placing one open hand upon his breast. “It is already forgotten, my lady.”

Once again the former Queen gazed thoughtfully at him, her wimpled head tilted slightly to one side, and then she nodded. “So be it, then. Berengaria, let us begin afresh. I present to you Sir André St. Clair, a knight of Aquitaine in my brother’s service and clearly a man to be highly trusted and regarded … Sir André, this is the Princess Berengaria of Navarre, the future wife of your liege lord, my brother, Duke Richard. I name him Duke to you because it is in my mind that his rank as King of England may mean little to you in person …” She allowed that sentence to fade away, and André bowed again, this time to the Princess, but he yet found it easy to smile back at Joanna.

“I swear to you, my lady, that were your brother King of Aquitaine, rather than Duke, it might sound like a higher rank, but it could neither influence nor increase the duty or loyalty that I acknowledge and dedicate to him as Duke today.” He turned again to the Princess and bent his leg to kneel before her on his right knee. “My lady Princess, I must now ask your pardon for what I have just said. Your future husband’s title as King of England may mean little to me as a knight of Aquitaine and Poitou, but I will happily swear personal allegiance to you and to your honor when you become both Queen of England and Duchess of Aquitaine.”

Now it was the turn of Princess Berengaria to raise her veil and bare her face to his inspection, and as she did so he became aware of and then tried to ignore the ripe and shapely fullness of her breasts as they lifted in response to the raising of her arms. He could almost feel Joanna’s eyes boring into him, gauging his reaction to what he was seeing, and he concentrated intensely upon keeping his eyes on the Princess’s hands as she arranged the folds of her veil about her head. At the same time, however, his mind was full of the thought that to waste such lavishly endowed beauty upon a man like Richard Plantagenet must be both a crime and a sin, for the very fullness of such a lushly feminine body would repulse the King, who surrounded himself at all times with tightly muscled, tautly beautiful young men. And what perplexed and preoccupied him instantly thereafter was the possibility that Berengaria herself might suspect and simply accept what lay ahead of her, as Queen to a man who had no liking or desire for women.

The Princess, who was smiling at him now, inclined her head good-naturedly. Before she spoke a word to him, however, she turned to the guard who remained standing with his back against the cabin door, pretending to be unaware of anything that was going on around him.

“Leave us, if you will. Wait outside.” She looked over to where the other three women sat huddled in the opposite corner. “You, too, may retire, ladies. We shall call you should we have need of anything.” The guard drew himself up and saluted, then ushered the ladies-in-waiting out ahead of him, leaving the royal ladies alone in the darkness of the cabin with André, who remained kneeling at the feet of the Princess. When the door had closed solidly behind the departing guard, the Princess turned her smile back on André. “Master St. Clair, you are most welcome here, as a friend and confidant of my betrothed, Richard, and there is no need for you to suffer there upon your knees. Stand up, sir. Did you not say, upon entering, that you bear written words from the King?”

Her voice sounded vaguely foreign, slightly alien in its cadences and vowel sounds but not offensively so, and it crossed his mind that he had never journeyed beyond the Pyrenees to her father’s kingdom of Navarre. Her people there, he knew, had lived under a constant condition of warfare for hundreds of years with the Muslim Moors to the south of them, and that condition of constant readiness for conflict was one of the things that had made the prospect of alliance with King Sancho VI of Navarre seem so attractive to Richard’s mother in brokering this marriage.

“I did, my lady. Pardon me, I have them here, in my scrip.” He rose to his feet and fumbled in the pouch at his waist, producing the two small cylinders and squinting at them in the poor light before handing the appropriately addressed tube to each of the women, who immediately set about opening them. Berengaria, smiling absently, waved to indicate the room behind André. “Be at ease, Sir André, while we read these. There is a comfortable chair behind you that I often use … This will not take long.”

André bowed his head obediently and moved to the chair the Princess had indicated, and as he turned to sit in it, he saw Joanna lower her eyes quickly to her letter. He would have smiled back at her, but she gave no further sign of knowing he was there, and so he turned his attention to the Princess Berengaria, glad that his eyes had now fully adjusted to the darkness of the room and that he was able to see her clearly, and even more glad that he now had this opportunity to look closely at her while she read Richard’s letter, which appeared to be long and substantial.

What could Richard Plantagenet possibly have to say, even in writing, that might engage the goodwill and curiosity of someone like you? he wondered, gazing at the way a tiny lock of black hair had worked its way from the confines of her wimple and now curled delightfully on the skin of her left cheekbone, and almost as though she felt his eyes on it, Berengaria raised her left hand absently, without taking her eyes from the page she was reading, and tucked the errant curl back out of sight beneath the white linen.

Black hair, he thought then, seeing how stark her eyebrows were against the dusky pallor of her face. Black hair and eyes so dark that they, too, looked inky black. At the moment, however, as she read, those eyes were downcast, and all he could see of them was the sweeping fullness of long, curling lashes that seemed to lie directly against the flawlessness of her cheeks.

Richard’s Queen, André St. Clair concluded then, was beautiful in a way that he had never encountered before in his amatory wanderings throughout his home territories. She was vibrant, he decided, and alive with the promise of great joys, and the unfamiliar duskiness of her skin gave her an air of strangeness that suggested other lands and warmer climes. He had known many women with dark hair and dark eyes, so it was not merely her coloring that made her different; in fact in all his life, now that he thought about it, he realized that he had only ever met four women who could properly be called blond, with flaxen hair and bright blue eyes; four, out of … He stopped there, unpleasantly surprised to discover that he could not supply that number, even for his own use. Four out of how many? How many women had he known to any degree of intimacy? Or even known well enough to feel attracted towards? Very few, he knew, and he set out to count them, working backward from Eloise de Chamberg, who had died in the woods of his father’s estate the day that indirectly caused André’s accession to the ranks of the Temple. Several he remembered well and easily, including all four of the flaxen-haired women, none of whom, he was surprised yet again to discover, he recalled with much pleasure. But then, when Berengaria stirred again and lowered the letter, he abandoned those thoughts and focused upon her.

She did not so much as glance in his direction. Her lips, full, red, were softly pursed, he saw now, the corners of her eyes gently wrinkled as she stared off into some unseen, private distance. Gently, absently, she scratched softly with one fingertip at the fabric of her bodice, beneath the sudden swell of her breasts, unwittingly drawing his attention back to her abundant femininity. Did she, could she, know that her future husband was a man-lover? And if she did, could she hoodwink herself into thinking she might change him? André really had no experience in such things, and he made no moral judgments on the matter. Some such men he could quite easily accept as friends and comrades, ignoring their proclivities without discomfort, while others of their ilk—and there appeared to be more of this kind than of the first—he much preferred to avoid completely, finding them to be less tolerant of others than they expected others to be of them. By and large, however, he was content to live his own life and leave them to theirs. But from his own observations he had learned, inarguably, that such men tended to flock together, thriving upon mutual attraction, and they had little time, and less use, for women. He had also seen enough of them sufficiently advanced in age to prove that theirs was not a condition one outgrew. It was not a phase to be passed through and then forgotten. André was convinced that this condition—he knew no other word to describe it—was a permanent thing, an immutable state of being, and he suspected that the love of a mere woman, irrespective of her ardor or fidelity, would be powerless to change it. He had no doubt that Richard would perform his duty and provide an heir from Berengaria, but neither had he any doubt that, once that task was done, the King would leave the woman to the rearing of the child, while he went off to frolic with his friends. That was the lot of many women, he knew.

He felt himself frowning, perplexed by Berengaria’s apparent lack of concern over something so selfevidently destructive. Could she really be blissfully unaware of all of this? She was but newly arrived here, from a sheltered home, judging by all he had heard, although that thought caused an uncomfortable stirring at the back of his mind, a faint memory of mutterings from several years before, linking Richard romantically with her brother Sancho. He thrust that thought aside and began again.

She was newly arrived here, and had not yet been sufficiently exposed to strangers to cause any pollution of her thoughts concerning her future marriage. No one would dare risk giving such offense, not against Richard Plantagenet, and not by furtive whisperings. Who other than Joanna, acting selflessly as friend, future sister, and adviser, could have told her?

Besides, this wife was a queen, born and bred with duty ever present in her mind, and the duty of a queen was to bear sons, just as the duty of a king was to sire them. Richard had undertaken publicly to set aside his lustful, unnatural tastes and breed an heir for England, and André, thanks to the high regard in which he held Richard as hero, had no difficulty, when he thought about it in that light, in believing that he would.

Joanna, having now finished reading, addressed André. “My brother says I am to trust you completely and to confide in you without reservation …” She looked across the table at Berengaria. “Did he say the same to you, Berry?”

The Princess nodded, and Joanna turned slowly back to André, tilting her head a little to one side and regarding him with wide eyes. “I wonder, can you have any knowledge of how great a tribute he pays you in that? I have never, ever known my brother Richard to say that of any other man. You must be a very signal and singular young man, Sir André St. Clair … But we have much to discuss, so let us be about it. Richard has asked me several questions about what has happened here since we arrived, and he wants you to hear my answers. I can only presume he has asked the same of Berengaria.”

“He has,” the Princess agreed.

“Well, then, would you prefer to speak with each of us alone, or may we do this thing together, all three of us?”

“Together would probably be best, my lady, unless you object. We are comfortably placed, unlikely to be disturbed or overheard.” He pointed to the open hatch over their heads. “Providing, be it said, that we keep our voices low. That opens on the deck above, and I suggest that we proceed as though there were a largeeared spy perched up there, with one hand cupped over each ear. My lady Joanna, would you like to speak first?”

They sat and talked in low voices, the three of them, while the pattern of sunlight crawled across the floor of the cabin, and when it eventually faded towards nothingness, André summoned help from the deck and they paused in their discussions until candles and new lamps had been brought in and lit. St. Clair had much to think about when he left them and returned to his own ship, where he immediately set about making notes on what they had discussed. By the time he sought his cot that night he was almost exhausted, and he fell asleep thinking of both women, seeing their different beauties separately in his mind’s eye and regretting, perhaps for the first time, that his status as a Templar would soon divorce him from any opportunity to spend such a guiltless, pleasant interlude in the company of women.

RICHARD’S GALLEY DID NOT ARRIVE until late the next morning, and when it did appear it was accompanied by two more of his galleys, but there was no sign of any following fleet on the horizon behind it. André boarded the boat that Tournedos had provided for his use and made his way to the King’s ship as soon as it dropped anchor, but even before he reached it he could see that he had been preempted by a larger boat from one of the three unknown ships he had seen arriving the previous day, and he murmured to his helmsman to keep distance between them and the strangers. The foreign craft was a medium-sized barge, painted in red and deep green and crewed by a team of eight oarsmen. It had a stern platform capable of seating ten men, for André counted all of them, all knights and all fully armored and bearing their own heraldic identities, none of which he recognized.

His curiosity was now fully engaged, for it seemed to him, as he watched the unknown knights clamber aboard the King’s galley, that they had an air of hard use about them: their shields, the few he could see, looked peculiarly old and worn, almost shabby, as though from long use, and their chain mail had a scrubbed look, too, almost a burnished finish, that intrigued him. The devices of their personal insignia seemed faded, too, the colors leached and dowdy. He watched as the armored knights crowded the galley’s deck, seeming to absorb every available inch of space, and he signaled to his own helmsman to pull even farther away and wait.

Time passed slowly after that, but moments after the last of the boarding party had clambered aboard, the barge that had carried them eased back from the galley’s side to make way for a much smaller boat that emerged from the other side of the ship and made its way slowly forward to await yet another passenger, this one departing. André sat up straighter as he saw the man approach the ship’s side, and recognized the stern, frowning, eternally humorless face of one of his best-known and least liked compatriots, Etienne de Troyes, the Master of the Temple in Poitou and the highest-ranking member of the Temple Order in the current expedition. De Troyes stepped down into his boat without looking around, then seated himself in the stern and pulled the hood of his mantle over his head as his single oarsman pulled strongly away from the galley.

It was almost an hour later by the time the group of ten visitors returned to their barge, and Richard himself accompanied them and stood looking down at them until they were under way. André knew the King had seen him, but he sat waiting until Richard glanced in his direction and beckoned him in before turning away.

The last of the storm had long since subsided, but the water was still choppy and the waves sufficiently unpredictable for André to misjudge his timing in leaping from his boat to the netting on the galley’s side. The boat’s side dipped just as he jumped, and he fell short, clawing at the hanging nets and narrowly avoiding falling into the sea. He climbed aboard the royal ship with his legs soaked from the knees down, and with seawater squishing between his toes he left a puddled trail of footprints on the decking as he walked towards the stern, where Richard now sat dictating to one of the clerics. Behind them, a gaggle of officers, onlookers, and hangers-on hovered, eyeing St. Clair as he approached and making no secret of their disdain for his wet appearance. André kept his face expressionless and ignored all of them, the King’s presence forcing him to resist the urge to drop his hand to the hilt of his sword.

Richard looked up as St. Clair approached and raised a quizzical eyebrow as he saw the wet trail, but he said nothing about it, merely nodding and holding up a finger in a mute request for a few moments more in which to complete his business with the cleric. In a low voice that André would have had to strain to hear, had he been curious, the monk read back to the King what he had written, and after listening to all of it Richard nodded and dismissed the man.

“André. You have the information I require?”

“Aye, my lord.”

“Excellent.” He raised his voice for the benefit of the crowd at his back. “Leave us, all of you, for you already have enough to talk about and some of you have much to do. But be sure that if I see you between now and when I finish with Sir André here, it had better be from a distance where the thought of being overheard or listened to would never occur to me. Off with you. Wait!” He held up a hand to stay them as they began to move. “Percy, you have your instructions and I require you to pass them along to your own people now, so that when the squadron following us arrives, everything will be in readiness for it. No one to go ashore until I give the word, but once you have that, I want the landings to go smoothly. Neuville, yours is the task of setting up my tent and guarding it. Disembark your guardsmen from the dromons immediately, and make sure that they are well supported by companies of archers and crossbows, then set us up on yon high eminence, there on the right, overlooking the beaches and the town’s main gate. The so-called Emperor of this sad place may yet be there, within the gates, so make you sure he can cause us no nuisance.

“And you, my lord of Richmond. Take you my royal barge across the bay in one hour’s time, but not a minute sooner or later, and see to it that King Guy is safely, and not too quickly, ta’en aboard and ferried ashore an exact hour after that, so that by the time you set his foot on land, our royal enclosure is prepared and securely guarded. Neuville, that should give you three hours from this moment. And now away, all of you, and leave me to my dealings with Sir André.”

As his entourage scattered, muttering among themselves and not a few of them casting glances towards André that ranged from simple curiosity through suspicion to outright hostility, the King beckoned André forward and waved him to the single chair beside his own at the table.

“Come, sit and talk to me. The bulk of the fleet will be delayed, for another day or two at least—too many damaged chicks and raddled old hens among the flock. But a squadron of our fastest vessels, loaded with some of my best troops, will be here by nightfall.” He looked around at the port ahead of them. “So, seeing no burning buildings in the town, I take it that my guards are still aboard the dromons and my ladies are both well and in good health?”

“They are, my lord, and looking forward to being reunited with you.”

“And what of this creature Comnenus, has he threatened them or molested them in any way?”

“No, not directly. The lady Joanna keeps her wits about her at all times and is a fine judge of men and their motives. It was she who interpreted this Isaac’s early actions and decided, once he began approaching her with conciliatory gestures and invitations to go ashore, that it would be safer and more prudent to maintain a distance between him and everything aboard the two remaining dromons.”

“Good for Joanna. But one can only presume that de Bruce would have reached the same conclusion on his own, had she not been there.” He hesitated, watching André’s face. “Do you not think so?”

“No, my lord, with respect, I think not. I spoke at length with the commodore this morning and he gave me the distinct impression that he does not approve of the direction taken by the Queen. He believes that, had he been at liberty to accept Comnenus’s initial invitation to parley, much could have been achieved without hostility. He regards your sister’s stance as being an interference in his affairs and an affront to his authority.”

“Hmm. And do you believe he is right, that he could have settled matters amicably with Comnenus?”

“No, my lord. Comnenus had already spurned our requests for assistance when our ships arrived and sought leave to use his harbor. He had by then despoiled our dead and seized our treasure from the wreckage on the rocks. It was only after that, once he had guessed that the surviving ships held more treasure, that he became conciliatory. He had no ships capable of attacking our dromons, and no army sufficiently organized to mount a land-based attack. So he had no other option than to try to win our ships by guile. Your sister was right to do as she did. Had she not done so, no one can really say what might have happened, but there is a real possibility that we might now be involved in a situation with royal hostages and a lost war chest held in ransom.”

“Aye, I’ve little doubt that’s true.” The words emerged as a deep growl. “Tell me about this Comnenus. All that I have heard is hearsay and reports at distance. I presume you have garnered more immediate information?”

“Aye, my lord, as much as I could find.” St. Clair sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers beneath his chin, settling his thoughts into sequence and only faintly aware of the coldness of his feet in their heavy, wet boots. “He is a strange man. I found that out immediately—a tyrant of course, and crazed, some say. He is largely detested—not merely disliked—by his own people, whom he treats savagely. He is Byzantine, and we knew that, but it seems an uncle of his truly was Emperor in Constantinople. That’s what Isaac swears, anyway. He arrived here some six years ago, from Constantinople, and contrived almost immediately—no one seems to know exactly how—to wrest control of the entire island from the Empire. It was that feat, apparently, along with his supposed imperial family connections, that inspired him to name himself Emperor.

“As I said, everyone seems to hate him, and yet he maintains his hold on power with an iron grip and a mailed fist. His own people talk of his grasping greed and his treachery, and his cruelty is supposedly hard to believe. I had it from de Bruce this morning, and he had heard it earlier from a number of people in the town of Limassol, that many of the island’s most prosperous and wealthy families have fled beyond the seas since he seized power six years ago. And those who remain do so only because they cannot escape. They are tied to their holdings here and they live in a state of despair because of Isaac’s greedy demands and depredations of their property.”

“The man sounds like a monster,” Richard growled, sublimely unaware that he might have been listening to a recitation of his own methods of raising taxes to furnish his war in Outremer. St. Clair, however, noticed no irony.

“That is nothing,” he added. “Apparently he treats his own officers and underlings so viciously, flogging and fining them at every turn, that they hate him almost to a man.”

“Then why don’t they kill him? That makes no sense at all. Does the fool know nothing about leadership? What kind of madness would drive a man—a leader of any description—to abuse the very people he needs most to keep him in power? The fellow clearly is crazed, sitting atop his island empire. Like this nonsense with the dromons. Did he think for a single moment that no one would come looking for such lost treasures? Did he think, for even the blinking of an eye, that those who came searching would be weak and witless? The man is an idiot.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” St. Clair replied. “The tale is told—and widely believed—that when he was much younger and apparently a strong and extremely able warrior, he went to war in Armenia among the Byzantine armies of the empire, and was captured and sold into slavery. According to this story, which persists even though Isaac himself seldom speaks of it, he spent many years thereafter in foreign lands, always shackled in heavy chains like a savage animal because he was so strong and rebellious. He came out of the experience with a rabid, deep, and abiding hatred for Westerners like us—he calls us Latins—because we kept him chained up for all those years.” He paused, then added, “That might explain his initial inhospitable reaction to the discovery of two strange Latin ships anchored off his shores, seeking assistance.”

“Aye, when you say it like that, I am tempted to think it might … but it makes me no less anxious than before to smear the wretch into a paste, the way I would a crawling spider. What else do you have? What about the early developments in all of this?”

André shrugged. “All accidental and not at all unusual, from what I could discover. The storm blew itself out eventually here on Cyprus and the three dromons had been driven by high winds the entire way. De Bruce believes that was due to the sheer bulk of the vessels. The vastness of their sides and stern surfaces acted as sails, catching greater amounts of wind than any other ships could harness, and consequently driving their big hulls farther and faster than any of their fellows. Be that as it may, they caught sight of the island at dawn of the third day of the storm, when the wind and the seas had just passed their peak but were still immensely powerful. The dromons were already too close to the shore by then and the one nearest to the land was driven onto the shoals and shallows that the islanders call the Rocks of Aphrodite. Once there, solidly aground, it was battered to pieces by waves and wind, and there was nothing either of the other ships could do to assist.

“The fury of the breakers among the rocks was such that very few aboard the ship survived to reach the shore. Over the next few days, the local fisher folk and islanders came down onto the shore, as is their wont, to salvage what they could. But the fisher folk found gold in the wreckage there, and the word soon reached Comnenus.

“We have been told that he did not know much at first, only that gold coins had washed up on the beaches and among the rocks, but that was enough to bring him sniffing. He saw your Great Seal around a fisherman’s neck and confiscated it, unknowing what it was. And then, later on, one of his fellows dived down and reported finding chests and boxes filled with gold in the wreckage on the sea floor.

“Hours after that, it appears, word came to him that two more ships, giant things blown in from the westward, had arrived off Limassol and were seeking permission to land. ‘Westward’ meant ‘Latin’ to Isaac, and he sent back word at once to deny the foreign ships entry. At the same time, he imprisoned everyone who had survived the shipwreck. It was only later, once he had questioned some of the local observers and had a chance to think things over, that he began to see that the two great ships reported by his Cypriots as having sailed away were likely to be the ships off Limassol, and they were therefore likely to contain more of the same treasure.

“His first reaction was to go rushing off to Limassol in order to impound the two ships—one of his own captains told us that. But he did not dare leave the scene of the wreck until he was sure that every fragment of the treasure had been found. He trusted no one and expected neither loyalty nor honor from any of his people, since he never showed any of either thing to them. And so he waited, ranting in his impatience, until every coin had been recovered, and many people took note of his anxiety.

“Several days later, he returned to Limassol, only to find that he was powerless to move against the two dromons. He had been told that these were enormous ships, but because he had never seen a ship much bigger than a fishing boat—the dromon on the rocks had been smashed to kindling before he reached there—he had had no way of knowing what ‘enormous’ really meant, until he set eyes on them. He knew at once that he had nothing with which to threaten these beasts.”

Richard was listening closely, frowning, and André continued. “It was at that point, once he had examined all his options, that he became conciliatory, offering friendship, aid, and hospitality to his unexpected visitors. To give him credit, he had at least sent word earlier to de Bruce that he was not in Limassol but had been detained inland, attending to affairs in Nicosia, and that might have worked had he not been undone by his own people, who told us everything they knew. De Bruce knew precisely, to the moment, when Comnenus had come back from visiting the wreck, and he knew, too, exactly what had been retrieved from the wreckage and what had been done with the survivors and with the bodies of the dead.”

“Wait. You say Comnenus’s own people told de Bruce all this? Why then would de Bruce disagree with what Joanna chose to do? He must have known she was right.”

“No, my lord, he knew she was a woman, with little understanding of the realities of war and politics—”

“God’s guts, man! Joanna was a reigning queen for years. And in Sicily! She knows more about politics and the way they work than de Bruce will ever learn.”

St. Clair nodded. “Aye, that is probably true. But de Bruce, to give him justice, believed he would have been dealing with Comnenus from strength. Cyprus has no naval strength to speak of, and whatever it has in the way of an army is in sad disrepair, an untrained rabble with no pride and no spirit. There are no knights in all the island, incredible as that may sound. The Emperor has driven them all away to other lands, fearful that they might plot to overthrow him. In short, de Bruce believed he could easily assert his superiority.”

“Not from on board a ship, he could not. He would have had to land first.”

“Aye, sir, and he could have. He had a full company of your own guards aboard—two-thirds of a company at least. Two hundred disciplined men. He believes he could have captured all Cyprus with those, because Isaac’s own people would have abandoned him.”

Richard looked dubious, tilting his head. “Perhaps … but perhaps not. In any case, it is not relevant. Joanna put her foot down. What then?”

“That is the most of it, my lord. There is more, but it is all incidental and will come out in answers to your questions as you pose them. For the time being, at least, that is all I have.”

The King scratched his beard in thought, then nodded, decisively. “So be it. You have done well, provided what I need. Now I can make a decision, which I could not have done an hour ago. Within the hour, should I so wish, I can launch my forces against this base-born fool of an Emperor with good reason and sound conviction. My thanks for this. Go you now and find something to eat and we will talk again later, once I have had time to think about all you have told me. No, wait. The Princess Berengaria … how did you find her? Her mood, I mean. Was she …?”

“The Princess was well, my lord, and in good health and spirits. She will be awaiting your arrival today with great anticipation.”

“Aye, indeed … Was she … What did you think of her? Is she not delightful to behold?”

“To behold … Yes, my lord, she is. Delightful. She will make a beauteous bride and a regal Queen.”

“She will … She will, to be sure. Once more, my gratitude is yours, Master St. Clair. Farewell for now.”