Standard of Honor

on the table. Then, in a movement clearly designed to give him time to think, he flexed his shoulders backward with a slow, exaggerated rolling motion and brought his elbows in close to his sides, raising his forearms in unison until his bent knuckles came together beneath his chin.

Sir Henry watched all of this intently, admiring the discipline that kept his son’s face so innocently empty of expression even while he must be wondering what had prompted the question and how much his father knew or had guessed. Henry was content to wait until his son should choose to respond, and sure enough, after scrutinizing his father for a count of ten, Andre dipped his head slightly sideways in what might have been the beginnings of a nod and returned to pouring the wine. He replaced the stopper in the ewer, set the flask down, then carried both cups to where his father sat by the fireside watching him. He handed one over wordlessly, then took the other fireside chair and looked down into the blazing heart of the brazier between them.

“Having been to England now, with all its chills and shivers, I find it strange that one should need a fire at night here in the summertime in the middle of France.”

“Aye, but the here you are referring to is not the middle of France. It is the middle of an old stone castle in west Burgundy, dark and damp and drafty and far removed from sunlight, winter or summer. It is always cold in here. And you are avoiding my question.”

“No, Father, I am not.” Andre looked up at his father. “I simply have not found the words yet to reply to it correctly.”

“How so? Can it be that difficult? We two are the only ones here, so you run no risk of being denounced for sedition or disloyalty, no matter what you say. You are at odds, in some way, with the King, that much I know simply from watching you. But Richard was pleasant with you when we met today, so whatever occurred between the two of you must have been minor. Otherwise you would probably be in prison in disgrace.”

“Aye, or even executed … True, Father. But bear in mind that you yourself warned me to keep my disapproval masked should I ever encounter anything to incur it.” He shrugged. “So I did. I encountered something … distasteful. Something I had not sought, nor thought to find.”

“Distasteful. No stronger than that?”

“No, not unless I dwell upon it, and I try not to do that, because when I do, my distaste increases to dislike.”

“Hmm. Tell me, then, about this distasteful episode.”

Andre’s expression hardened. “It was no episode, Father. It was far more than that. I have found distastefulness to be a constant in the man. A trait … a flaw I cannot bring myself to countenance.”

Staring at his son now, and seeing the cold, stern disapproval on his face, Sir Henry felt stirrings of chill gooseflesh raising the hairs on the back of his neck as he imagined the tenebrous, threat-filled specter of Richard’s notorious homosexuality looming behind Andre’s head and gesturing obscenely.

“Do you hate Jews, Father?”

“What?” So abruptly different was the question from what he had expected that its incongruity threw Henry off balance. “Do I—? No, I do not hate Jews.” But then he hesitated, before blurting, “What concern is that of yours? Why would you ask me such a thing?”

“Forgive me. Most people do hate them, I find. They call them Christ killers.” He frowned, and when he spoke again his voice was quieter. “Richard … Richard does not like Jews.”

Somewhere deep inside him, Henry felt relief unfolding like a blossom. “I see. And that is what you find distasteful?” He nodded gravely, not expecting a response from Andre. “Well, it’s hardly an unusual opinion, is it? But having said that, and taking your exalted opinion of the man into consideration, I suppose it is understandable that you might be disappointed, particularly if he makes no secret of his dislike. But Jew hating is something of a social pastime everywhere, not merely here in Anjou and Aquitaine but all throughout Christendom, sanctioned and often even fomented by the Church itself.” He paused, musing, then continued. “So I have to ask you this: do you find the pastime unequivocally distasteful everywhere you encounter it, or only in Richard’s behavior?”

“He is the King, Father. His behavior sets an example everywhere, for all his people. And in England, many of those people are Jews.”

“Ho, now!” His father held up his hand, “Rein yourself in, there. Many would argue strongly against that. You will find people aplenty ready to tell you loudly that Jews are Jews, no more and no less, irrespective of where they are. They live within the confines of their own strange religion and lead their secretive lives to their own ends, shunning the company of non-Jews but thriving through usurious commerce with Christian folk and neither owing nor offering allegiance to anyone or anything Christian. By those precepts, the Jews of England will remain forever Jews and will never be English, as their counterparts here will never be Angevin or Aquitainian or even French.”

Andre had been staring at his father, narrow eyed, while Sir Henry spoke, and now he nodded. “You could, you might argue that … but would you, Father? Do you believe it?”

Sir Henry flicked the question aside with a one-handed gesture. “That is neither here nor there, although in fact I do not believe it and have not for years. What we are dealing with here is you and your beliefs, since those appear to clash with your King’s. So let us deal with that.”

Andre looked away from his father’s gaze as he raised his cup and drank off almost half its contents. “Deal with that, you say. But I seem to be incapable of dealing with it sanely, at least for the time being.”

It was Henry’s turn now to turn aside and stare into the flames, collecting his thoughts before presenting them to his son’s judgment, but presently he rubbed the back of one finger gently against the end of his nose. “Have I ever told you about Karel?”

“Karel the Dalmatian, the Magyar. Your boyhood tutor.” Andre smiled. “Aye, you have, many times, but I have not heard you mention his name in years, not since I was a tadpole. I remember you saying often that there was far more to Karel than he ever chose to let people see.”

“Most people looked at him and saw the Outlander: the strange-looking fellow with bushy hair and narrow eyes and the thick-tongued way of speaking. They never thought to try to look beyond that front that he maintained. And that was all it was: a pretense, a mask held up in front of the real Karel to protect him from the attentions of those he considered fools.”

Andre tilted his head sideways, an expression of gentle amusement playing about his eyes. “I gather, then, he thought most people fools?”

“He did. And by his lights, he was correct, for Karel equated foolishness with frivolity, and most people prefer being frivolous to being serious all the time.

“He was a lawyer, you know, long before he ever thought to turn soldier. His family was wealthy and powerful in their own land, and some bishop there took note of the boy, recognizing his abilities even in childhood, and sent him off to Rome to be educated at the papal court. He had a mind for legal matters, it transpired, and he quickly made a name for himself, winning advancement to great heights, by his own admission years afterwards, at a very early age—” He broke off, hesitating, but still smiling that same whimsical smile. “I suspect now, although it is mere suspicion, unsupported by any evidence, that he may have been a priest or even a bishop by the time he was done, and I would not be surprised to learn he ranked even higher than both. But in any event, something went very badly wrong. Something he learned or experienced in Rome repulsed him, and his disgust was terminal. He walked away, left Rome and all it had meant to him, and cloaked himself in absolute obscurity, in the last place anyone would ever think to look for a cleric and a lawyer … or a bishop, for that matter. He took up arms as a mercenary.

“That was in 1133, in Germany. He entered into a contract to fight for a German nobleman, Conrad of Hohenstaufen, the man who later became King Conrad III. Karel served with Conrad’s armies for twelve years, then left for reasons of which I know nothing. He had entered Conrad’s service as a fugitive lawyer, and he emerged twelve years later as a highly regarded military officer, and that is when he came into my life. My father had met him years earlier, somewhere in Germany, and they had become friends—God alone knows how or why. Anyway, when he left his position with the German King, he came looking for my father and took a contract with him, as a mercenary, tasked to train the St. Clair men-at-arms in modern weapons craft. He did it very well, too, and when his contract expired, he stayed on in my father’s employ, charged with the primary task of educating me, albeit as a soldier, not as a cleric or a student. And for the next ten years, in his own unique and inimitable way, that is precisely what he did.”

Andre was leaning forward in his seat, listening closely. “He educated you, you mean, or he taught you to fight?”