Aquitaine, along with the remaining territories belonging to the House of Plantagenet, to be at peace with France and its allies henceforth, abjuring all conflict while England and France remain jointly engaged in the service of the Lord God. In the event that either monarch be killed before the war is ended, the other will assume command of his armies and redouble their efforts on behalf of Christ and Holy Church. Should either monarch break that pledge, he will stand excommunicate and the united bishops of both realms will attest to the justice of the punishment.”
“You there! You, with your lips moving! I hope you are praying, insect, but even if you are, do it in silence. I see your lips move one more time and you’ll be drawing extra latrine duties for the coming month. You hear me?”
“Aye, Brother Sergeant.” Andre kept his face blank. Neither man had seen the sergeant approach, but now that he had singled out Andre, the two became models of dutiful decorum. For the next four hours, until they reached the point where they would stop for the night, they behaved themselves, making no attempt to communicate. Between them, for all that, a comradeship was born and grew stronger throughout the remainder of that day.
After dinner that night—a chaotic event, it being the first time the field kitchens had made shift to feed a thousand men at once—the two men sat by a fire for the hour before curfew. It had been a long, tiring day, so they soon found themselves alone, the rest of their companions gone to sleep, and they returned to the topic they had been discussing earlier that day.
“So Philip and Richard both agreed to that arrangement you described?” Eusebius was impressed and made no secret of it, shaking his head in mock disbelief. “I would not have believed that had I heard it yesterday. I have been told those two have been squabbling like jealous, ill-tempered fishwives ever since they arrived here, yowling and circling each other like two long-clawed cats in heat—” He broke off, looking warily at St. Clair. “Does that offend you, to hear such things?”
Andre merely looked at him, straight faced. “Why should it offend me? Because I count myself a friend of Richard, or because you suspect me of unnatural tastes?”
Eusebius stared back at him, unsure of how to respond and unable to decipher the look on his face, and Andre allowed him to hover on the edge of apprehension for several heartbeats longer before he said, “In truth, I found the long-clawed-cats-in-heat image was an apt one. Very good. Now hear me, my friend. If we are to be friends, and it seems to me we could be, then we have to start trusting each other. I swear to you that no matter what you say to me, I will not run off and report you to the Master of Novices. Not for speaking what is in your mind. Are we as one on that?” He watched until Eusebius nodded. “Good, then carry on with what you were saying. You had them fighting like cats in heat.”
Eusebius sat blinking for several more moments, then nodded his head. “Excellent. So be it … Fighting bitterly is what I was saying, with that unmatchable venom of former lovers. The queenly side of Philip’s nature has been on hugely admired display, I’m told. Probably because his royal nose is out of joint.” He paused, and then grinned with relish. “Mind you, you can hardly blame him if you think about it at all. He has been the only king in all this land for ten years, and now his former lover has a king’s rank, too. That, plus a bigger army, a deeper treasury, a more appealing personality, and a stronger, well-earned reputation as a warrior, to boot. Not to mention that he owns a bigger fleet, even stronger than the Genoan navy that Philip has had to hire at great expense to ship his own army. And none of that is made any easier for him to bear by the fact that Richard is too cock-a-hoop and too flamboyant ever to consider sparing Philip’s dignity by toning down his own performances.” He shook his head again. “That must have been a stodgy bowl of oats for Philip Capet to choke down all at once. It must have really stuck in his throat. And yet you say he has swallowed all of it, his pride as well as his bitter gall, and come to terms? What about the matter of Alais?”
St. Clair spread his hands and made a moue. “Settled, apparently. Richard has promised to wed her.”
“God’s nose!” Eusebius straightened up in shock, but managed to keep his voice down to an impassioned level that maintained their privacy. “After all the shouting and the dancing that has gone on all these years, he’s going to marry her? Well, by God’s kneecaps I find that difficult to credit, but I will take your word for it … although I would wager he will never touch her anyway, wife or no.”
“Why would you say that? He has a son, you know.”
“He’s reputed to have one, you mean. No one that I have ever heard of has seen the brat, and you’d think if it were true he’d take the little bugger everywhere with him, just to let the soldiers know he’s as potent in bed as he is in battle.”
St. Clair could only dip his head to that, unable to respond yea or nay, and soon afterwards the trumpet sounded curfew and the two men made their way to their tents.
The next two days were nothing but marching, eating, sleeping, and starting all over again. At the end of one long march through heavy, rain-soaked woodlands, St. Clair was gratefully clutching at a large pannikin of hot venison stew from one of the commissary stations and making his way towards the fire his new comrades had built against the dampness of the evening air, when he heard his name being shouted. It was his friend de Tremelay, with a loaf of bread beneath his arm and a skin of wine dangling from his shoulder. The two ate together, sharing what they had, and Andre’s new companions were courteous enough to seek their cots soon after they had eaten, leaving them alone so that they could talk for the short time that remained before curfew. They had exchanged their daily trivia, speaking in generalities, and after a momentary silence, de Tremelay asked, “So, how are you finding the hardships of belonging to the Temple?”
“Barely noticeable to this point, for which I humbly offer thanks. Most of the nonsense attached to harassing newcomers seems to be set aside while we’re on the march. No time for playing silly games. And I’ve found one fellow I like, another postulant. Good sense of humor and an intellect. His name is Eusebius.”
“That’s a bonus, at least. Be thankful for it. Will the fleet be there when we arrive, think you?”
St. Clair had been thinking about Lyon, where they were scheduled to arrive two days later, and it took him a moment to realize what de Tremelay was talking about. “You mean in Marseille? Why would it not be?”
De Tremelay flicked a piece of wood he had been holding, sending it tumbling end over end into the fire. “I can think of several reasons. Were they crows, they could fly from England to Marseille in two days. But they are ships, so they have to take the long way around, all the way down along the west coast, through the Bay of Biscay, with the roughest seas in all of Christendom, down past Portugal and east from there, around Moorish Iberia, then north again along the eastern coast. One bad storm could sink half of them and scatter the others like leaves on a pond. Or they might run afoul of the Moors’ galleys, along the Iberian coastline or even in the narrows of northern Africa. The Moorish fleet can’t match our ships for strength, but their galleys are fast and lethal and they could cause severe damage to our plans.”
“No, I think not.” Andre shook his head. “This is June already and the worst of the spring gales is long blown out. The Bay of Biscay should be calm by this time. At least, that is what de Sable told me. Besides, he will be in command of the fleet himself and it’s a fighting fleet. His ships—the ten biggest, best, and fastest vessels ever built in England—are warships, pure and simple, newly built and designed for exactly the kind of sailing he’ll be called upon to do in coming to Marseille from London. I don’t doubt they will be there waiting for us.”
“Well, I’m sure you are perfectly correct in that.” De Tremelay’s voice was little more than a rumble, and it dripped now with sarcasm. “And they’ll see us comfortably laden, too, no doubt. We’ll each have a comfortable little hole somewhere within the ship, where we can crouch in utter misery among our dying, stinking equals and puke our entrails up all the way from Marseille to wherever we land in Outremer. Where will we land, do you know?”
“If we can land safely, it will be at Tyre, on the coast of Outremer. That’s the only port left open to us— Saladin and his hordes control all the others. But first we have to make the voyage, from Marseille between Corsica and Sardinia to Sicily, and then from Sicily to Cyprus, and thence to Tyre.”
“Is that a long trip?”
“No. We’ll be at the mercy of wind and tides the whole time, but according to Robert, all going well, we should be no more than a month at sea.”
“Sweet Jesus, that’s a long time to be sick. Have you ever been seasick?”
St. Clair shook his head. “I never have, although I understand it is not pleasant. Have you?”
“Aye, several times. It is the strangest thing, for when you’re falling sick at first, with your insides falling into themselves and curdling with every swoop and swing, you think you are going to die and you’re afraid. But later, when you’re in the midst of it and
