Sir Henry frowned slightly. “Issues such as what?”
“Policy, ambitions, politics, and schemes. William Marshall, Marshal of England, and Humphrey, Baron of Sheffield.”
Sir Henry leaned an elbow on the table’s edge, tapping his pursed lips with two fingers. “Explain.”
“Do I need to, Father? It took no great understanding when it was explained to me this morning. Richard is King of England, but he is also Duke of Aquitaine and of Normandy and Count of Anjou, Poitou, Brittany, and a host of other territories, none of which are English and all of which have offered up their men to this mission to free Outremer. You are, by title, the King’s Master-at-Arms, but in reality you are Master-at-Arms to your liege lord Richard, Duke of Aquitaine, and as such you represent in your very person the identities and the hopes of every soldier in the armies of Richard and Philip who is not English. If you fall from favor and are dismissed, then William Marshall will assume your place and this entire army will fall under English control. That must not be permitted to happen.”
Sir Henry nodded slowly, agreeing but conceding nothing. “I can understand how that might be of concern, but what of Humphrey of Sheffield?”
“I am surprised that you would even ask. I know the fellow, Father. He is a gross, slovenly pig, without honor and unworthy of his knighthood, let alone a barony. It has come to Sir Robert’s attention, from a source he claims is unquestionably truthful and well informed, that you have crossed paths with this swine … and have, in fact, come nigh to crossing blades with him.”
Sir Henry shook his head abruptly. “Not so. I do not like the man, but I have had no active quarrel with him.”
“Can you be sure of that, Father? Would he agree? The information that Sir Robert received was that you had come to Humphrey’s attention, unpleasantly, over the matter of a certain Jew called Simeon, here in Messina. Simeon was a well-known figure in this city, apparently, a merchant but not a money lender, but he disappeared from sight, with his entire family, at an inopportune moment and has not been seen since.”
“An inopportune moment for whom?”
“For Sheffield. Who else would care? Humphrey is a rabid, dedicated Jew hater. It is one of the things, and probably the single most significant thing, that enables him to maintain the friendship, if such it is, that he shares with Richard. It is Humphrey’s responsibility, it seems— although it is something not openly acknowledged—to provide Jews for Richard’s dinner entertainment spectacles. According to Sir Robert’s informant, this Simeon had been earmarked for one such spectacle, after an altercation with one of Humphrey’s associates over a debt. But he vanished, as I said, along with his family. Your name came up in connection with the disappearance, something about a warning in advance of a nocturnal visit from Baron Sheffield’s men-at-arms. Humphrey believed the report and took it to the King. Fortunately for all of us, the King was … preoccupied and did not have time to listen to the report. In the meantime, Sir Robert, having heard of the matter from his own spies, took it upon himself to intervene, providing an unsolicited explanation for your conduct that was a direct contradiction of the tale Baron Humphrey had received. The Baron, who is deeply in Sir Robert’s debt and had no reason to suspect the Master of the Fleet would even know you, believed what he was told, and so nothing more will come of it. But Sir Robert wishes you to know what happened, and while he would not presume to tell you how to behave, he begs that you will at least be more circumspect in future.”
Sir Henry sat silent for long moments, digesting what André had said, and then he inhaled deeply and nodded, lowering his chin to his chest and pinching his lips between two finger ends. Finally the Master-at-Arms looked up. “So be it. I acknowledge it. I acted rashly, although it did not seem so at the time. In future I will be more … careful. But was it truly only fear for my political position that made your friend act as he did?”
“Can you doubt it, Father? Think about what is entailed.”
“I have, and he is correct. And seen from that viewpoint, my responsibilities are larger and more complex than I had believed. I shall be more careful from now on.”
“No, Father. If it pleases you, I would like you to stay away from any involvement with Jews in future. Everything surrounding them is fraught with danger amounting to insanity.”
“Aye, but only because our King chooses to make it so.”
“Our King and his bishops. The Church condones it.”
“My son, the Church fosters it. But should ordinary men of goodwill then hide their heads and condone it, too, giving tacit consent to atrocities that would disgust the gentle Jesus in whom we are taught to believe?” He shook his head, once and with finality. “Do not ask me to do that, André. It sits well with neither my nature nor my honor, so we will speak no more of it. You have delivered your message, and I have heeded it.” He hesitated, then added, “You said your friend told you the King was preoccupied and did not hear Sheffield’s report, but did he say why? When did this happen?”
“I don’t know, Father. I did not think to ask. I was too worried about the ramifications of what he was saying. But looking back on it now, on the urgency Sir Robert betrayed, I have the distinct impression that it had all happened very recently.”
“Hmm. Within the past few days. It had to be then.” He checked himself, cocking his head at his son. “Have you heard about the sodomy confessions? No, I can see you haven’t. There’s probably much good to be gained from living the cloistered life.” He thought for a moment, then went on. “Less than three weeks ago Richard decided, for reasons known only to himself and God, to confess to being a homosexual deviant. He cloistered himself with an entire convocation of bishops in a private chapel here in Messina, belonging to a local dignitary, and there, amid clouds of incense, he made a full and purportedly public confession of his addiction to sodomy, begging forgiveness of God and the Holy Church and supplicating the strength to resist temptation and mend his lustful, impious, and unnatural ways henceforth. Amen.”
“My God! This is not a jest, is it? He actually did that?”
“He did. I thought at first that might have been why he was preoccupied and unable to deal with Sheffield’s report, but then I realized that the Simeon affair came after that. So de Sablé must have been describing the events of the past few days when he spoke of Richard’s preoccupation. Which means Eleanor’s arrival, four days ago.”
“Eleanor’s arrival? The Duchess Eleanor, the King’s mother? Is she here in Sicily?”
“She is. Arrived the day before yesterday, and the place has been buzzing like a hive ever since. You and your fellow novices must be the only people in Sicily not to know.”
“But why? What is she doing here? I thought she had returned to England.”
“No, nor will she. She is back living in Aquitaine, in Rouen and sometimes in Chinon, which she always loved. She merely came here to deliver a gift to Richard.”
“A gift.” André’s voice was flat, his face blank as he sought to make sense of what he had just heard. “What kind of gift would bring her all the way here to Sicily to deliver it herself?”
“The gift she was going to find for him when last I saw her. A wife.”
The words dropped like bricks into a still pond, and for a long time neither man spoke.
“A … wife …” André’s voice was much lower now, deliberately hushed, and his father’s response matched his out of sheer caution, even though the heavy doors at his back were solidly shut.
“Aye, from Navarre, south of the Pyrenees. The Princess Berengaria. Eleanor went to her father’s court and sued for the match in person, successfully. King Sancho will be a strong ally for Richard. Years of experience fighting the Moors down there in Spain.”
“Aye, but … This King, Sancho you said? Has he no knowledge of … of what Richard is? What hope they to achieve by this, and how is Richard reacting?”
“He appears to be reacting very well, to most people’s surprise. Fortuitou
s timing, I suspect, considering how fresh he is from being absolved and forgiven for all the abominations of his former ways. With that all comfortably behind him, I am quite sure he sees himself reborn and newly disposed towards cohabitation and fatherhood. But in truth, an uncharitable soul might wonder whether our monarch could have heard, say a month or so previously, that his mother was on her way to visit him with bride in tow, and decided to prepare himself accordingly.”
“Yes, perhaps he did. Nothing would surprise me in that. But in God’s name, Father, the mere idea! You know Richard even better than I do. So are we now to give credence, all of us, thanks solely to the verbal blessings and forgiveness of a chapel full of bishops, to the public pretense of Richard Plantagenet married, and a paterfamilias?”
“Unimportant whether you or I believe or not, André. It will be done, be assured. England will have a Queen and perhaps in the course of time a Prince Royal, and Richard will be seen to be a man. There is no contesting the fact that an heir for England is Richard’s first priority, overarching all other responsibilities. If he fails to come up with a son, the throne will go to his useless brother John. And even I, who have spent less than a single month in England and have no wish to return—even I know that to be a prospect no one wishes to consider.”
“Ye gods!” André was shaking his head. “This is the King who would not even have a woman at his coronation dinner! And now he is to surround himself voluntarily with women. Eleanor, Joanna, and this, what’s her name, Berengoria? Mother, sister, and wife. They will drive him insane.”
“Her name is Berengaria, and it is my understanding that she is a quiet thing, demure and … complacent.”
“Complacent? I hope she is, for by all the gods, she will need to be.”
“Besides, Eleanor is leaving for home again in a few days—actually for Rome first, then Rouen. Richard made sure of that with no loss of time. And Joanna can be malleable enough, with proper treatment. She will cause no trouble, lacking her mother’s presence. Besides, she’ll be company for the poor bride once the husband rides off to war.”
“So when is the wedding to be?”
“Not during Lent, that much we can rely on. But after that, who knows? The bridal party is all here, although I doubt that Philip Augustus will attend, and there is a profusion of sanctified bishops ready and salivating at the thought of pontificating when Richard Plantagenet is brought back into the fold of sexual orthodoxy. God help us all.”
“Will you attend?”
“Of course I will. I shall have no choice, as Master-at-Arms. But you should be a Templar knight by then, so you will not be expected to be there.”
André gave a little grin. “Perhaps not, but we will have to wait and see. How is Philip taking all this, really? Do you know? He must be out of countenance, his lover to be wed and his sister spurned at the same time, despite a bishopric full of holy oaths to the contrary.”
“Aye, as you might expect, he is not happy. But Philip has been a king all his life, and thus he is a pragmatist. He will learn to live with the realities involved.”
“Aye, no doubt … and with the unrealities as well.” He twisted his face into a grimace. “So be it, then. There’s nothing any of us can do, as you say. But I do have your promise to be more careful in your dealings with the Jew baiters?” He returned his father’s nod and stood up. “Excellent, then. I shall return to Sir Robert and tell him about this, and then I should return to the commandery. Fare thee well, Father. I hope to see you again soon.” He stepped forward to embrace his father, but Sir Henry grasped him by the upper arms, staring into his eyes.
“When will your novitiate be complete? When will you join the Order?”
André smiled. “I really don’t know, Father. They don’t tell you things like that. They won’t even unbend sufficiently to tell you if you will join the Order. But I can promise you that, like the King’s wedding, it won’t be before Easter, because it can’t happen during Lent. In the meantime, I fret sometimes about the vows …” His grin widened as he watched Sir Henry’s eyes, and before the older knight could frame the question springing to his lips, André added, “The poverty and obedience are simple enough. Those are part of the life I have chosen, but the chastity worries me, because I did not choose that …” He was being facetious, but his humor became tinged with chagrin when he saw that his father had taken him literally. He grimaced and took his father’s hand again, holding it in both of his. “That was a jest, Father. A poor one, I see now, but I was trying to make you smile.
“And now I must go. Until next time, stay well. And remember, no more foolish risks over Jews. Risks I cannot forbid you, but foolishness is governable, is it not? Adieu.”
TWO
On the tenth day of April 1191, which happened to fall that year on the Thursday of Holy Week, Sir Henry St. Clair, enjoying the lift of a ship’s deck beneath his feet, was prepared to believe he might yet make a sailor out of himself. The sky was clear, cerulean blue, the sea beneath the hull was smooth and calm, and a gentle wind, just strong enough to fill the sails above and behind him, seemed to herd King Richard’s gigantic fleet in front of it like a flock of sheep. Perhaps half a mile away across open water from where he stood at the prow of King Richard’s personal warship, a line of sixty-four ships spread out to each side, seeming to fill the sea from horizon to horizon, and yet he knew that they were but a tiny portion of the King’s fleet. The vessel on which he himself stood, a long, sleek galley flying the royal standard of England and powered by both sail and oars, was one of a sub-fleet of ten identical warships that was King Richard’s maritime pride and joy. All ten had been built to exacting specifications designed jointly by Richard himself and Sir Robert de Sablé, Master of the Fleet.
Engineered from the outset as fighting ships, each of the ten galleys had been built to be self-sufficient. Each carried thirteen anchors, in anticipation of sudden, severe, and perhaps even frequent need to cut and run, and in addition each carried three spare rudders, a spare sail, and a crew of fifteen men, commanded by a captain or master. Each one also carried thirty oars and three complete sets of ropes and rigging, and provided accommodation for a hundred heavily armed men and their equipment. They were long, slender craft, each of them fronted with a pointed spur on the prow for ramming the enemy, and they were propelled by two rows of oars. They had been built to ride low in the water, yet to have enough strength and resilience to handle high seas without difficulty. Fast, versatile, and predatory, their primary purpose was the defense of the remainder of the huge fleet.
Caught in a vicious storm the previous month, on the first leg of their long voyage from Dartmouth to Lisbon, the ten vessels had been scattered and one of them had been lost. Now five of the remaining nine, including the King’s own ship, formed the eighth and rearmost rank of the fleet of two hundred and nineteen fully laden ships, transporting Richard’s entire army to Outremer. The other four were ranging freely, chivying the lines of ships ahead. The sixty-four vessels directly ahead of the rear line formed the seventh rank, and six more lines stretched out ahead of that, beyond Henry’s vision, each line narrower and containing fewer vessels until the first of them, the vanguard, held only three massive and impressive ships called dromons, slow and at times ungainly, but sturdy and always dependable—seaworthy was a word Sir Henry had heard applied to them with great respect by Robert de Sablé.
Henry had been told that could one have soared above it like a bird, their formation would have appeared as a gigantic triangle upon the surface of the Mediterranean. It was possibly the largest accumulation of warships ever assembled since the time of the Trojan Wars.
Behind him, Sir Henry could hear the King’s voice raised in raillery, and he found it easy to imagine the strained, uncertain smiles on the faces of Robert de Sablé and the other officers of the fleet clustered around the monarch on the rear deck. He counted himself fortunate not to be part of the gathering. Although things appeared to be going well this day, no o
ne, every man in that group knew, could afford to place a wager on how long the relative calm would last. Richard had been like a raging bear for nigh on two weeks now, ever since the thirtieth of March, when Philip Augustus had thrown a tantrum, ostensibly outraged at the possibility of accidentally finding himself face to face with the woman Berengaria, “the bovine Navarrean slut,” as he called her, who had “compromised and dispossessed his little sister, Alaïs.” That Berengaria had never met or known his sister and had had nothing remotely to do with Alaïs’s years-long fall from grace was immaterial to Philip, who was simply indulging himself, giving free rein to his petulance and jealousy. But at the height of his dudgeon, his passions fueled by his own fulminations, he had confounded everyone by issuing orders to summon his Venetian fleet, which was waiting offshore, and then to marshal and embark the full complement of his French and allied forces. He had then set sail for the Holy Land without a word to anyone outside his own circle, and without consulting his English colleague and co-leader.
Richard, taken by surprise like everyone else, had had no other choice than to react as the situation demanded, abandoning whatever plans he had been working on and issuing orders of his own to marshal his troops and proceed with their embarkation as quickly as possible. The alternative, doing nothing and thus leaving Philip to do as he wished, entering Outremer as the savior of Jerusalem at his own pace and under his own conditions, was simply unthinkable. Now that the German King-Emperor Barbarossa was dead, there could be but one savior of Jerusalem: Richard Plantagenet.
And so the English King’s mobilization had proceeded from disorder to chaos, unexpectedly begun and poorly organized thereafter despite all Robert de Sablé’s experience and expertise in such things. For days nothing had appeared to go smoothly and no one appeared to function with laudable distinction: ships had been loaded and manned and then unloaded again because of uneven ballast or improper provisioning—a lack of properly laden and stowed water, or the omission of sufficient food and stores to keep crew, soldiers, and livestock fed for as long as was required. The harbor of Messina and all the tiny coves and inlets up and down the coast for miles in both directions had been reduced to conditions of utter chaos for days on end, with proliferating traffic difficulties that gave way to other, fresher problems as they themselves were resolved.