by Jack Whyte
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 Anjo
u 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.
&nbs
p; “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.