Only after he’d spoken did Christopher realize how much he’d given away. He should have no idea what Matthew Norris had said or not said last night.
Isabelle didn’t seem to notice. “Oh, he did, first thing, and we decided it would be best if I stayed where I was.” She clasped her hands before her lips and looked down at the floor for a second, apparently gathering her thoughts. Then she looked up. “But now I think I can’t.”
“Can you tell me why not?” He asked a bit delicately, not wanting to pry if this was something between her and her father, but he figured he should know more given the urgency of his own mission.
“Remember what I told you earlier about eavesdropping?”
“That you have a flexible view of the morality of it? Of course.”
“I overheard something that’s more than disturbing. I need to tell my father.”
“Will you tell me where you were when you heard it?”
“Not the latrine.” She pressed her lips together, thinking again, but then gave a sharp nod. “There are passages—”
Christopher instantly put up a hand. Philippe’s secret was a lot less secret than he knew. “I know about those already. Don’t say anything more, not inside the palace. I’ll get you to your father.”
Isabelle had blinked in surprise initially, but now she made a rueful face. “He won’t like that I’ve come to the Temple. Men only, you see.”
“You will find that isn’t the case today.” Christopher gave her a mischievous grin and threw all caution to the winds. Isabelle already knew too much, and if she wasn’t on their side and a co-conspirator, she needed to be. “My mother is there, for starters.”
At the moment, Elisa was knee-deep in plans to rescue Philippe’s family from Vincennes, though Isabelle didn’t need to know that part.
Her mouth formed an oh that she didn’t vocalize, and Christopher was already moving towards the door. He opened it, looked both ways, and then held out his hand to Isabelle, indicating she should come to him. As she did so, Christopher looked past her to John Jr., who was still nearly immobile by the wardrobe. “You okay?”
John Jr. gave Christopher a jiggering nod. “Go.” Then his shoulders sagged, and he sat down on the end of the bed where Isabelle had been sitting. “I’ll be fine.”
Christopher and Isabelle set off, her hand in the crook of his arm. Together they paraded down the corridor and then out into the main courtyard of the castle. The rain had let up earlier when Christopher had arrived with John Jr. but now it began to fall a little harder, forming rivulets between the flagstones. All the better castles had paved courtyards and pathways, and Philippe’s palace was no exception.
“I was looking for a way out too, since I have some news for your father as well. My plan was to walk to the Paris Temple, but are you prepared for that? We should get you a carriage, right?”
“I don’t want to wait for a—” Isabelle pulled up short at the sight of her father (of course it was her father), wearing the white Templar surcoat and cloak, entering the palace on horseback.
Norris dismounted before he saw them, but as he tossed his reins to a stable boy, he pulled up short at the sight of Christopher and Isabelle waiting for him.
“Father.” Isabelle started forward, and Norris stared at her for a second before he switched his attention to Christopher and hurried towards them.
Christopher widened his eyes, trying to signal to Norris that this was a public place, and they needed to act like they didn’t know each other. Thus, when they met in the center of the courtyard, Christopher bowed. “May I introduce myself, sir. I am Christophe de Clare.”
Isabelle frowned, looking from one to the other. “What—”
Christopher bent his head close to hers. “I’ll explain everything when we are out of the palace. Just go along for now.”
Norris gave Christopher a sharp nod before looking again to his daughter. “I am here because the king has summoned me on a most urgent matter.”
Christopher supposed he should have realized that would happen. This time, not only did he lower the volume of his voice and step closer, but switched to English. This was a very public place for them to be meeting, and there was a definite limit to what he should be saying and doing with eyes watching, but Norris needed to know what he was walking into. At least they were standing in the rain, and nobody else was within earshot.
“Philippe is going to ask the Templars to round up every Jewish citizen of Paris and expel them from the city.” Christopher decided now wasn’t the time to mention his bit of manipulation that ensured it. “Tonight.”
Norris’s expression went completely still, but Isabelle tugged on Christopher’s arm, which she was still holding. “That’s not all, Father! I was ... passing by when I overheard Nogaret and Flote speaking with the Duke of Burgundy.”
Norris tsked under his breath. “How did that come about?” Then he put up a hand, seeming to understand that some questions were best not answered. “Never mind. What did they say?”
“Until now, I feared they were discussing your order. It was why I was so adamant that Christopher escort me to see you. But Christopher’s news is equally disturbing. The duke said, They’ll never loan to Philippe again. Flote replied, It doesn’t matter. What we take from them tonight will cover many of our current debts, after which they won’t be of use to us anyway. Burgundy replied, Where will they go? to which Nogaret said, Why would they have to go anywhere? Five miles out of the city should do it.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Day Two
David
David slipped out of the commandery on foot amongst the general activity of a Friday, along with Henri, Darren, and a Templar sergeant named Gerard, whom Michael thought especially competent. None were dressed in their usual uniforms. They were going to the main synagogue in Paris, and it would give the game away to have any Templars spotted near there on today of all days. David felt the pressure of what needed to be done about Joana and the boys, but others were working on those logistics until he returned. First things first.
With many rights and lefts, Gerard led the way to the synagogue, located some ten blocks from the Paris Temple. David knew the geography only because Michael had told him. He’d never been to Paris, either in Earth Two or Avalon.
“Pardon, sire, may I ask a question?” Gerard glanced at David as they walked along the city streets, presenting themselves as normal Parisians.
“You may.” David was trying to look everywhere at once without seeming to. The rain was helpful for that, in that it provided a good excuse to keep his hat pulled down low to shield his face from any curious observers, and they could walk quickly. It also meant fewer people were on the street, so a tail would be easier to spot.
He'd learned a few things in his time with his MI-5 friends.
The original street on which Jews lived had been near the palace on the Île de la Cité itself. When the Jewish community returned to the city after the previous expulsion from Paris, the Jewish quarter had moved to the Marais on the right bank, an area encompassing the streets between the Paris Temple and the river, and bordered to the east by the prison and city wall.
“Did you really expect these events to play out the way they have? Michael claims it is so.”
“Did I know exactly what was going to happen over the last twenty-four hours? No. But what did happen was within the range of my expectations.”
“But this new pogrom against Jews—” Gerard seemed at a loss for words.
David shot him a rueful look. “At times, Philippe has resisted the advice of his advisers regarding pogroms against Jews. But he is under tremendous pressure financially, and confiscating not only the movable property of his Jewish citizens, but their homes and businesses as well, will appease his debtors and solve some of his current financial problems.”
“And create others,” Henri said.
“He wouldn’t be the first ruler to focus more on the three months right in front o
f him at the expense of the next three years. Or the next thirty,” David said.
“I am troubled that the Templars are included in Nogaret’s machinations,” Henri said. “I am troubled that you arranged for them to be.”
It wasn’t the first time Henri had questioned David’s decision-making, but it was the most serious. David had been walking slightly ahead of Henri, and now he turned all the way around and walked backwards for a moment. “Do I hear disapproval in your voice?”
Henri paced along for another few yards, not meeting David’s eyes. “When does the end justify the means?”
David turned back around, slowing, so he could walk beside Henri instead of Gerard. “You see Christopher as the devil on King Philippe’s shoulder and me on his?”
Henri’s mouth was pinched. “Perhaps.”
“Good.”
Henri’s step faltered. “Good?”
“I need people to keep me honest, and I admit infiltrating Philippe’s court, eavesdropping, and planting ideas at the high table is walking into the gray. In Avalon we might call it entrapment. But Nogaret had just proposed expelling his Jewish citizens from Paris. In this instance, his goals aligned with mine, and Christopher knew it. We had developed a plan to smuggle everyone out of the city, but how much better to march them out in front of everyone. Ironically, it means less subterfuge.”
“Don’t Grand Master Molay and Master Norris realize there’s a danger in participating in any act of disobedience to the crown?” Henri said. “We do not take sides in the temporal world.”
“That is why including the Templars in this scheme had to come from within the French court,” David said, “and why we have done everything in our power, and will continue to do everything in our power, to prevent Nogaret from discovering any link between you and us. And, I submit, that protecting Jews isn’t taking sides.”
Earlier, back at the Paris Temple, David had stood before his friends and family as they’d all argued with him about why he shouldn’t be the one to go to the synagogue. But it had to be him, as finally his Uncle Ted had insisted. David’s uncle rarely talked during meetings; mostly because, early in his arrival in Earth Two, he had been out of his depth and wise enough to know it. These days, as David’s Lord High Treasurer (a no brainer appointment if there ever was one), he still didn’t have a lot to say. But when he did speak, people listened. It was a mode of being David had been trying to implement himself, perhaps not very successfully.
“These people have been persecuted for centuries and are facing a raid by the Templars, whom they can’t help but fear,” Uncle Ted had said. “While it would have been great to have Aaron at your side, the raid is happening tonight, so the conversation with the rabbis has to happen while Aaron is still in prison. While they might take someone else seriously, they will certainly listen to you, since you have been included among the Righteous.”
Norris had been pacing before the fire as Ted spoke, but he stopped and returned to parade rest, his left hand on the hilt of his sword. “We have done nothing to them.”
“You are associated with the crusades,” Ted said in a flat voice, “and the crusades sparked off massacres of Jewish communities.”
Norris backed down with a nod. “I admit not all crusaders have honor. We here at the Paris Temple strive every day to correct that.”
David loved it when Norris talked that way. It gave him hope that he and his friends weren’t as far out on a limb as it often seemed they were.
Henri had been part of that conversation too, and now he shook his head. “You are a dangerous man.”
“Am I?”
Gerard and Darren had slowed, narrowing the gap between them. This was an interesting moment for Henri—and by extension Gerard—in questioning the King of England. But then, as David had told Henri, good.
“We are all bound by rules,” Henri said, “but you keep insisting there are no rules.”
Up ahead, Darren laughed. “Believe me, Henri, there are plenty of rules, just not the kind you’re used to. King David’s rules are internal: honor, uprightness, loyalty, and truthfulness, though I admit we’re bending that a bit here.”
Henri paced along another few yards, thinking. “What you’re telling me is that you care little for the external rules because the internal rules are far more important.”
David wet his lips. This was deep into the weeds of his philosophy, but it seemed, finally, someone not only had sensed the difference, but wanted to hear him speak of it outright. “Thou Shalt Not Kill is an external rule everyone should abide by. Don’t steal. Don’t betray your neighbor. We need rules like that so society doesn’t descend into chaos, even anarchy. But the rules that say to wear this or do that for what looks to me to be an arbitrary reason? You are right, I have little patience with them.”
“They keep the people orderly.”
“You’re right about that,” David said, and didn’t bother to trim the mocking tone in his voice.
At that, Henri had to stop right there in the street. “You don’t think that’s important?”
“What good does it do to contain people if they never learn to contain themselves? They may not officially be in prison, but you’ve created a kind of prison for them.” He spread his hands wide. “The Templars are actually different. You chose the box you’re in. If you want to abide by a list of rules along with like-minded people, I’m all for it. But I would object to you demanding others follow them.”
“Like requiring Jews to wear yellow badges.”
“Exactly like that.”
Henri was gazing at him with something that looked a bit like awe—or maybe horror. “You question everything.”
“Yes, I do.”
“It must be exhausting.”
“It’s what makes him a great king, Henri.” Darren put out a hand to David. “Sire, we’re on the clock.”
“Right.” They started walking again.
Gerard had taken up Henri’s position as the rear guard, and it seemed he wasn’t done with the conversation. “Is this why you’ve taken nothing for granted? Why you have interpreted what Nogaret said to mean that once Paris’s Jews are out of the city he intends to harm them?”
“It was more than an implication, by Isabelle’s reading, and by mine. Besides,” David shrugged, “Nogaret’s plans dovetail nicely with our own. It’s what the boats are for anyway.”
“Boats?” Gerard asked.
They’d reached the street across from the synagogue.
“You hadn’t heard about the boats?” Darren looked both ways and crossed the street.
Gerard’s mouth fell open. “You’re going to get five hundred people out of the city on boats?”
“They’re already going to be out of the city,” Henri said, having been privy to that part of the plan. “King David is simply going to float them downstream all the way to the English Channel.”
The very notion of getting twenty English boats up the Seine without anyone noticing had been one of the greatest challenges of the entire plan. That is, until Callum had mentioned a place in Normandy called Dunkirk. All of a sudden, the Avalonians had begun nodding.
David gave Gerard a small smile. “You didn’t think the few of us you’ve seen so far were our only allies, did you?”
Chapter Twenty-five
Day Two
Callum
“I wish you didn’t have to go.” Cassie stood before Callum within the shelter of the gatehouse. It was raining again, and he could practically see his armor rusting with every second that passed, just from the walk down from the keep. Hugh didn’t seem to mind the rain. And from Callum’s experience this last year, it rained in Angoulême more in the summer than the rest of the year, unlike in Britain, where it was the opposite. “It’s hard to be the one who stays behind.”
“I agree you are the better diplomat.” Callum bent his head to hers. “If the French commander agrees to dine with us, you can speak your mind at dinner, but you can’t ride out with the
men, not here.”
“I know. It’s okay. I trust you completely. Besides, you are a better swordsman by far, and this—” she gave a little shrug, “—is perilous.”
“I hope not, but it’s worth risking a few men, even Hugh and me, to find out.” He canted his head. “That said, I have no intention of dying today, nor losing any man on my watch.”
“Plans and opportunities.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “At times I can hear your voice behind every word David speaks.”
“We’re lucky in that.”
She handed him his helmet. “We wouldn’t be here at all, doing what we’re doing, if he wasn’t who he is.”
“I imagine everyone else can hear your voice in what I say.”
“If they’re smart.” She grinned.
He made an exaggeratedly sour face, so she would be sure to see it beneath his nose guard. “I hate this thing. I might as well be wearing a cooking pot.”
She smoothed the fabric of his deep burgundy cloak along his shoulders. “You look splendid.”
Callum rolled his neck, loosening the tension in his back, and then mounted his horse. Hugh de Lusignan’s captain, carrying the white flag, was set up in the front of the company of men, with Hugh and Callum lined up right behind him, followed by an escort of a dozen other men from Aquitaine, mostly lesser nobles and knights within Hugh’s court. It was an honor guard, no more, and would be perceived as such. Fifteen men were hardly a threat to the army of five thousand men on their doorstep.
Artois’ forces had set up their camp at the only reasonable location, given the defensible position of the city on its hill, just out of what was generally perceived to be archery range. It was a matter of five hundred yards from the city, or five football fields set end to end. It had seemed much longer to Callum last night.
The Martial Gate, the closest one to the army, could be bombarded by cannon and siege engines, and also assaulted on foot, but the nature of the terrain would force the besiegers to narrow their column, giving the defenders a more compact target. If it turned out Artois really wanted war, Angoulême wouldn’t be easy to take.
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