by Jack Whyte
“No, then we’ll lose our seats. Stay here and finish your meat.”
By the time he returned, his new companion had finished eating and was staring morosely into the fire in front of him. André handed him a flagon of beer and sat back down beside him.
“Interesting that King Guy should turn up here, all the way from where you’d expect him to be, when we’re supposed to be on the way to help him. Don’t you think?”
“Interesting?” The guardsman shrugged. “No. I mean … I suppose it is if you care. But who cares? Besides, we’re not going over there to help him. We’re going over to kick the Saracens out of God’s country, aren’t we? To take it back for the Church …” He shook his head. “Can’t see much in favor of our helping him, when I think about it … if I thought about it … He’s not much of a king at all, if you ask me. I mean, our boy, Richard, now there’s a king. Looks like one, dresses like one, and behaves like one. That’s what a king’s supposed to be … a fighter. A scrapper, d’you know what I mean? Someone who knows what’s his and’ll take your head off if you so much as look sideways at it. That’s a king. These other characters … Well, I mean, look at Philip … Or don’t. I’d rather not. Do you look at him and see a king right off? I think not. Oh, we all know he is one … and he talks like one and wears the fine clothes, but he’s too prissy. He’s too … I don’t know what he is, what the word is, but he’s too something for my liking. Something that he needs to be but isn’t. Certes, he’ll have you murdered in your bed or stabbed in a dark alley if you cross ’im, but he’ll never stand up and damn you to your face before he rips your head off with his bare hands, like Richard will … And this King Guy’s the same way, from what I’ve heard.”
“What have you heard? What’s your name, by the way?”
“Nickon … Nich’las, really, but Nickon’s what I get. What’s yours?” André told him and he nodded. “Aye, well, André, from what I’ve been told, this Guy, this Jerusalem King, looks as though he should be good in a fight, but he doesn’t often get to fight, if you know what I mean. Not too many people confident of his leadership … He’s the one caught all the blame for the big battle at Hattin, where your lot and the Hospitallers got slaughtered and we all got kicked out of Jerusalem. They say he lost it all single-handedly, ’cause he didn’t know his arse from his elbow and couldn’t make up his mind whether to stop and fight or run and hide … Anyway, one of the nobs he brought with him was talking to the King—our King—day before yest’day, and I was on duty, right there within reach of ’em. Anyway this fellow, some big baron from Jerusalem, he was saying that Guy was the one who set up the siege of Acre, two years ago, and he’s been holding Saladin’s crew tied up there ever since.”
He cocked his head, looking sideways at André. “He was captured and held prisoner by old Saladin himself, did you know that?” André shook his head, pursing his lips, and Nickon nodded solemnly. “Well, he was, for more than a year … Mind you, being a prisoner and a king probably isn’t the same thing as being a prisoner and a plain old sweaty guardsman, because Saladin let him go after that, on condition that Guy promised not to fight against him again. So Guy promised, and he got out, and then he started raising an army right away … Well, a promise to a godless heathen’s no promise at all, is it? ’Specially if it’s made under … you know …”
“Duress.”
“Right. Anyway, it took him a while, but he finally raised an army and set siege to Acre …” Nickon tilted his head, eyeing André from an angle. “You’ve ’eard about Acre, haven’t you? You know what it is?”
“Yes … and no. I remember hearing something vaguely, but it was a long time ago and I didn’t pay much attention. I had no notion at the time that I’d ever be going there. Tell me about it. What’s so important about Acre?”
“Well, it’s a port, isn’t it? One of the places that Saladin overran and swallowed up right after Hattin. The only place he didn’t get, right at that time, was Tyre, another port, farther to the north, and he would’ve had that as well if it hadn’t been for Conrad of Montferrat. I’d never heard of him before yest’day, but I’ve heard a lot about the whoreson since then, I’ll tell you. He’s a German, some kind of baron or high lord, one of Barbarossa’s people, and he turned up in the Holy Land by accident—” He checked himself. “Well, not by accident, not really, but nobody there knew he was coming, and he sailed right into the harbor at Tyre with a fleet of ships full of knights and soldiers on the very day the people in charge was getting ready to surrender the city. Put an end to that, Conrad did, and right quickly, and the upshot was that Saladin withdrew … Nobody really knows why he withdrew, but he did, straight away. Turned around and marched away down south and captured Acre instead … And his army’s still holding it, even though they’ve been under siege for two years now, and King Guy’s the fellow who started the siege.”
André wrinkled his brow. “Wait, now … I understand all that, but what has it to do with Conrad and Guy being enemies?”
“Nothing, my old lad … and everything. I can see why you’re still a novice. Conrad and Guy are two cats fighting over the same mouse … The mouse is the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and there’s nothing happens in the Holy Land that isn’t touched by it. Conrad sailed into Tyre by accident and rescued it. Now he’s Marquis of Tyre. Guy sailed into Jerusalem and tupped its Queen—though she wasn’t the Queen then, not yet— and now he’s the King of Jerusalem. Conrad is envious. The kingdom’s bigger than a pissy little port and he wants it for himself. And according to what this nob was saying to the King yest’day, he might get it, one of these days … See, he’s arguing—and there seems to be a lot of people over there who support him—he’s saying that Guy was only king there because his wife, this Sibylla, was the rightful queen. Sibylla died last year … she’s gone. Ergo, according to Conrad and those who’d like to see him on the throne, Guy no longer has a claim to the crown.”
“But Guy was crowned legally, was he not?”
The guardsman turned and looked at André from beneath raised eyebrows, lifting his arms in appeal. “I don’t know. Somebody forgot to invite me to the coronation.”
“Aye, well, he was, by the old Patriarch Archbishop of Jerusalem.”
Nickon slowly pushed his lips out into a pout that was all the more impressive because he had no lips to speak of, his mouth little more than a horizontal slash. Nonetheless he managed to convey great skepticism, perhaps because of that, and as André began to ask him why, he lifted one hand and shook his head slowly from side to side.
“Ask yourself one question, lad … Do you really believe Montferrat and his cronies care for a moment about what some doddering bishop might have done five years ago? There is a kingdom at stake here, lad. The actions of one bishop, patriarch or not, won’t stand up for a single heartbeat against the urgency of that …” He paused, and then his face broke into a wrinkled grin. “And I can tell you that with certainty, because I heard the Jerusalem baron fellow say the same thing, word for word, to King Richard yest’day, after the King said what you did, about King Guy’s coronation …
“See, they don’t care about what’s legal. All they care about is setting Conrad on the throne and throwing Guy out into the desert. Ever since Conrad first landed in Tyre and heard about what happened at Hattin, he’s been working at undermining Guy and taking his place. He’s never stopped, not for a moment … When Guy won free from Saladin and went to Tyre, the first thing he did was ask for the keys of the city from Conrad, because he was the King and this was all that remained of his kingdom. Of course, he didn’t get them. Conrad accused him of uselessness and cowardice right then and there and told Guy that with the disgraceful defeat at Hattin, he had forfeited the right to call himself King. And then, shortly after that, he turned around and claimed the kingdom for himself and kicked Guy out of the city. He wasn’t shy about claiming the crown like that. He’d already gone from nobody to Marquis of Tyre, so the step to kingship couldn’t have looked
like much of a challenge.
“After that, instead of going away—because the fact was he had nowhere to go—Guy simply stayed outside of Tyre and worked at raising an army beyond the walls, and Conrad did nothing to discourage him … in fact he sent him men because he had more people inside the city than he could feed. Guy eventually gathered about seven hundred men, most of them Templars and many of them from inside Tyre, including the Master of the Temple, de Rid-something-or-other.”
“Gerard de Ridefort.”
“Yes, him … and that made all the difference, because once Guy had the support of the Templars behind him, others kept drifting in to join him, and soon he had several thousand under arms, all of them eager for a fight, and in the month of August he marched them south and set siege to Acre. A little while after that, fearing to lose the advantage to Guy, Conrad led some of his own people to join the siege. He and Guy managed to cooperate for a while, and to his credit, Guy held his end up really well in the one big clash they had with Saladin’s forces outside of the city. But the army soon split up into factions—Guy’s people against Conrad’s—and that’s the way it remained for more than a year …”
“And? There’s more. I can hear it in your voice.”
“Aye, there is … And then King Philip showed up with his half of the army … He met with both several times, weighed one up against the other, and chose Conrad. That’s why King Guy is here. He decided he couldn’t wait for Richard to come to him, because Philip’s been telling everyone that Richard is more interested in dallying with his friends than in reaching the Holy Land. So Guy left Philip and Conrad in front of Acre and he sailed here with the pick of his best knights, hoping to convince Richard of the need to hurry to Acre and bring Philip to heel.”
“And will he, think you?”
“Will he convince the King, you mean?” Nickon twisted his face. “King Richard’s advisers might tell you he will … Personally, I think he already has, because Richard listened very carefully to all he had to say, and when he had finished talking he gifted him with new clothes and armor … Guy’s old clothes were threadbare and his chain mail rusted and falling apart. He also gave him fifteen hundred pounds in silver marks and various other treasures to replace what he had lost ... Now, I’ve been in attendance on the King for many years, and I’ve never known him to do a thing like that for someone he doesn’t like, or doesn’t intend to help.”
“Hmm. And based upon that familiarity and experience, what d’you think he’ll do now?”
He never did receive an answer, for even as he asked it, one of Nickon’s friends came striding urgently towards their fire with word that brought both men to their feet. Isaac Comnenus, he told them, had sent envoys to Richard, suing for peace and a settlement of their differences, and Richard, precipitate as ever, had already agreed to a truce and committed to meet the Emperor outside the gates of Limassol at mid-afternoon. The King would ride out in full panoply, and Nickon and his fellows were recalled to duty immediately, to escort him, dressed in full parade armor. Within moments, Nickon had vanished in the direction of the city gates, and André was alone again, mulling over what they had discussed and trying to decide what to do next. He knew that he did not want to miss the confrontation between his King and Isaac Comnenus, so he went back on board his ship, collected his crossbow against the possibility of finding time to practice later in the day, and set off on foot, his crossbow and quiver dangling from his shoulder, towards the appointed meeting place on a slightly elevated plateau on the flatlands slightly to the west of the city gates.
FIVE
André St. Clair arrived at the chosen venue in time to find himself a good vantage point atop a large, solitary boulder, close enough to the activities to watch both parties approach and to see and hear everything that happened.
Isaac arrived first, in what he must have supposed was full and impressive splendor, riding on a magnificent stallion that made André raise his eyebrows in admiration. But when Richard arrived astride an equally splendid mount, he was so sumptuously bedecked in gold weaponry and jewelry, with magnificently worked garments and priceless accoutrements, that the Cypriot Emperor was stricken dumb by his grandeur and so abashed that he positively groveled in front of the English King.
The proceedings went swiftly. Isaac begged, with great humility, to be forgiven his transgressions. Humbly he offered all the castles in Cyprus for the billeting of Richard’s soldiers and promised to contribute knights, mounted archers, and infantry to the Frankish campaign. He offered fifteen thousand pounds of gold in retribution for the moneys he had stolen from the wrecked dromon and offered to surrender his only daughter as hostage to his future good behavior. Richard, still disposed to be magnanimous, for whatever reasons, accepted Isaac’s capitulation graciously and then, summoning the captain of his own guard, ordered the immediate return of the magnificent pavilion that he had captured from the Emperor’s abandoned camp at Kolossi. The two rulers sealed their truce with the kiss of peace, and Richard returned to his castle in Limassol, while Isaac remained to watch over the erection of his grand pavilion on the spot where they had signed their truce. André left him there and set out for the archery butts, thinking that, for a man whose reputation in such matters was that of an impetuous hothead, Richard had handled the Cypriot Emperor extremely well.
He was intercepted by one of Richard’s knights before he could reach the butts, and the young dandy ordered him brusquely to attend upon the King immediately, then wheeled away, leaving André to make his own way to the castle. Stung by the younger man’s loutish ill manners, André whistled loudly at his back, and when the fellow turned around, he called him to order, tore a strip from him for his high-handed and offensive attitude, and then demanded to know where the King expected to be met. The answer was, as André had known it would be, that he was to come to the King’s quarters, but by the time he heard the answer, he had reached the haughty young knight and was within grasping distance of his ankle. He took a firm grip on the ankle and jerked the knight’s foot from the stirrup, then thrust the open palm of his other hand beneath the exposed boot’s sole and thrust upward, hard and straight. The knight, caught completely unawares, flew out of the saddle and crashed loudly to the ground, where he lay gasping, unable to catch his wind. Before he could even begin to recover, St. Clair was looming over him, his booted heel pressing gently but firmly into the fallen man’s throat, and the point of his bare dagger dangling to trace gently over the man’s nose.
“Now, sir,” André murmured, his words quiet but clearly audible. “It is painfully clear that someone needs to talk to you about good manners, comportment, and a proper show of modesty and forbearance. You are a young and foolish knight, who looks at a man like me, dressed as I am in simple tunic and leggings, and sees nothing admirable, nothing noteworthy, nothing to indicate that I might be worth cultivating, or even slightly worthy of respect.” The point of the dagger rapped gently but smartly against the bridge of his nose. “That, sir, is because you are a fool with much to learn, and evidently little in your head with which to absorb any of it.” André inserted the point of his blade into a nostril and tugged gently upward, raising the fallen man’s entire body by the nose. “Listen closely, now, Sir Ignorance, to what I tell you. I, too, am a knight, of longer duration, more experience, and probably higher status than you. That makes you even more of a fool, for not being able to see that without requiring to have it pointed out to you. My name is André St. Clair. Remember it. And I am an Angevin from Poitou, vassal and liege to King Richard, who knighted me in person, five years ago. So, if my lord should ever summon me again, and send you to find me, you make sure you approach me with proper respect, lest I turn you into a hunchback by the simple means of kicking your ill-mannered arse up into the space between your shoulders. Do you understand me, my pretty?” He pulled the knife point harder against the nostril. “Do you?”
It was clear that the fellow wanted to nod eagerly, but could not have done so
without cutting his own nose, and so André held him there for a few more moments before stepping away to allow him to struggle to his feet.
“Are you aware that I have not asked for your name?” he asked. “That is because I have no interest in knowing it. But it also leaves you with the knowledge that I will not speak about this afterwards. Be satisfied with that, and do not even think about evening the score on this. Do I make myself clear? For if you do, so help me God, I will cause you great grief. Now go back to the King and tell him I have to dress, but will be in his quarters within the hour. Go!”
“WHAT DID YOU DO to young Dorville?”
More than an hour had passed since his arrival in the King’s quarters, and from the occasional veiled reference that Richard had made but not pursued, André had suspected this question might be coming in one form or another, and so he was able to keep his face innocent and empty of expression. “Dorville, my lord? I know no one called Dorville. Should I?”
“You know damn well who I’m talking about. The knight I sent to summon you.”
“Ah, that fellow. I merely gave him a small lesson in humility, my lord. It should not go to waste.”
“Humility. Dorville. How did you do that? And don’t even think to lie to me. I want the truth.”
“I simply pointed out to him that I believed I deserved more respect than he was showing me, my lord.”
“And where exactly was he while you were pointing this out to him?”
“He was on his back, sir, at my feet. His Adam’s apple was beneath my heel.”
“What did you enjoy most about doing that to him?”
“The expression on his face when he realized where he was, my lord.”
“Hmm. And what did you like least about him?”
“His smell, sir. It was too … sweet, too womanly.”