betrothed, the Princess Berengaria, and for his beloved sister Joanna, Queen of Sicily. My name is Andre St. Clair, and I am a knight of Poitou, liege to Richard as both Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou.”
The introductions and amenities dealt with as briefly as possible, de Bruce, the type of self-important martinet who set St. Clair’s teeth on edge, informed Andre in clipped, formal words that the ladies had retired to their quarters for their midday meal, and that he would inform them of Sir Andre’s arrival. In the meantime, he directed one of the senior lieutenants, pointing with the hand that held his letter from the King, to conduct Sir Andre to a sheltered spot on the rear deck outside the superstructure, where he could sit on a pawl and collect himself in privacy while he awaited his summons to attend upon the ladies. Mindful of Richard’s admonition, Andre said nothing more, merely nodding formally and turning his back on de Bruce and his group to follow the ship’s smirking lieutenant to the spot indicated, where he stood looking out towards the three newly arrived ships, purging his anger at the insult of his reception by reviewing the conversation he had had the previous day with Richard Plantagenet.
Richard had summoned Andre to the stem deck of his galley—a place where they apparently might not be overheard. There he had sat in his shirtsleeves, working busily. He needed someone, he explained, for a task that he could not trust to any man who might think to cross him.
“And then I remembered you,” he said, “praying in the solitude of your penurious cell aboard one of the Temple ships.” His face split in a grin and his voice rose. “I know your sword arm is well enough by now, but are your knees yet functioning, after being bent in prayer on a wooden floor for so long?”
He did not wait for—and clearly did not expect—an answer, but proceeded directly to say that he would be sending Andre with the Temple squadron to Limassol in Cyprus. Richard and the others would follow with the tide, a day or more later.
“Limassol is where my dromons ended up, with all their cargo: my wife-to-be, my sister, and my war chest—all the moneys I have raised to fight this war. All of them there, at the mercy of this demented Emperor.”
“Emperor, my liege?”
“Aye, some petty fool of a ruler in Cyprus, a Byzantine who stole the throne, is threatening the safety of my women and has laid his thieving hands upon the Great Seal of England, wearing it around his neck like a gewgaw. I am sailing to root him out and kick his smelly arse out of Cyprus and into the sea. I need speed, and the Marshal of the Temple, Etienne de Troyes, agreed to let me borrow his four fast ships— of course, only after I’d mentioned the danger to our war chest, and how the loss of it would severely curtail our campaign in the Holy Land. For their part, the Templars, bound by their duty, will guard the ladies— guard them to the death—and they will keep their holy distance, terrified of contamination.
“Andre, I must be wary at all times of those with whom I deal. The potential for treachery and double dealings, for secretive and surreptitious alliances and plots among all this upheaval is enormous. Philip alone, I know, would be willing to pay anything to anyone, if they would undertake to destroy the possibility of this marriage my mother has contracted between England and Navarre. And he is but one of the enemies I have among our friends. Even the Marshal of the Temple must be suspect in my eyes in this affair, because his sworn loyalty is to the Pope, and the Pope would dearly love to lay his hands upon some means to keep England without an heir, and consequently at the mercy of France and Philip Capet and his staunch ally, Holy Mother Church. Rome has not yet forgiven me for my father’s sin in killing Thomas Becket. And Philip will never forgive me for rejecting him … him first, and then his sorry sister.”
He sighed. “I can take no other man’s word for what has happened or for what is going on, because the stakes involved are so enormous that I will always wonder if what I am being told is truth, or whether someone has been suborned in order to set me on an errant course. You will do no such thing. It does not lie within your nature.” He picked up two folded and sealed packages that lay on the far corner of his table and tossed them, one after the other, to Andre. “These are for Joanna and the Princess Berengaria. Joanna’s is the one marked with the pen stroke by the seal. I want you to take these to their dromon immediately and deliver each one personally to the lady for whom it is written. Trust no one with that task. Do it yourself. Request an audience with both ladies in my name, then remain with them and wait for their responses, for I have asked each of them different questions and made it clear that I will be relying heavily upon the accuracy of their answers.
“I do not know the Princess well, but my sister Joanna was never anyone’s fool, even as a bosomless chit of a girl. Indeed she is more her mother’s child than any other of our brood. If there is something rotting around her, Joanna will have nosed it out and dealt with it by now. She will have information and opinions that will be invaluable to me. You read and write, too. I remembered that with much pleasure. It triples and quintuples your value in this. Listen closely to all Joanna has to say, and then make notes of all you judge to be important.”
Andre would also bear a letter to Sir Richard de Bruce, whom Richard described as “a good seaman and an able commander, but distant, unfriendly, and disdainful.” De Bruce would be instructed to give Andre a complete report and assessment of the situation in Cyprus, and to provide him with money, which Richard believed Andre might need for the purpose of bribery in order to gather information.
“When I arrive in Limassol, I want you there, waiting for me. You and I will then withdraw together and you will inform me of everything you have learned. Everything, Andre. Is that clear? Do you understand exactly what I require?”
Andre nodded.
“And now, by God’s Holy guts, I have to meet with bishops, who will wish to pray, no doubt, for the safety of my future bride.” He paused, and then a grin of pure devilishness transformed his face. “I will confess to you, but never to them, that I thought, last night, about my betrothed’s safety. Were she to be ravished and returned to me fruitfully pregnant, it might save me a deal of unpleasantness, would you not agree?” He blinked then, owlishly, his smile fading but not disappearing. “No, apparently you would not. Very well, Sir Andre, get you gone, and keep your mouth shut, your ears open, and your wits about you.” Andre had saluted and left then, striving manfully to conceal the shock he had felt at Richard’s cynical remarks about his future bride’s safety, and telling himself that the King had meant not a word of it.
When Andre was summoned at last, he was taken to a doorway in the stern of the great ship, where a guard knocked and then stepped aside. Andre moved into his place as the door opened inwards and an armored guard peered out at him and then moved aside in turn, beckoning him to enter. The doorway was low, and Andre had to stoop to pass within it, squeezing past the guard, who sucked in his paunch and tried to make himself as small as he could while the visitor passed him. Once inside, Andre was astonished to realize that the chamber he had entered was tiny and that the low ceiling barely afforded him the space to stand upright. It was dark in there, too, the only natural illumination being a grid pattern of bright beams of sunlight that painted the floor in checkered squares from an overhead hatch, making the dark shadows even darker by comparison. The few smoky lamps he could see mounted on brackets fastened to the ship’s beams did little to dispel the gloom. He sensed rather than saw human shapes, female shapes, on both sides of him and counted three in a dark corner to his right and two on his left. Two ladies sat at a small table that held the remnants of a simple meal. He could see from their attitude that both of them were looking at him, so he bowed deeply and addressed himself to both of them.
“I pray you will forgive me, ladies, for I know not which of you is which and the light in here is very poor. My name is Andre St. Clair, knight of Poitou, and I bring you greetings and written words from my liege lord King Richard, who sent me here in haste to promise you that he is coming, with the remainder of his fleet, and will be here tomorrow to speak with you in person.”
“Ooh, la! Richard has found himself a clever one.” The speaker was the woman on his right, and something in the tone of her voice, a measure of maturity that he would not have expected in the young Princess, led him to wager with himself that this was Joanna Plantagenet. He stared hard into the gloomy corner where she sat and decided to take a risk of appearing stupid, rather than to stand there mumchance like an awkward boy. He smiled, showing his teeth, and raised an eyebrow. “Clever, my lady? May I ask what prompts you to think that?”
“Why, the cunning way you evaded the trap of having to guess at which of us was which, for that was a guessing game you could not have won without offending one or both of us. St. Clair, you say? Are you related to Sir Henry, who was Master-at-Arms to my mother?”
“I am, my lady. He is my father.”
“Then I know you, knew you, when you were a child. Step closer.”
Andre did so, relieved to know that he had guessed correctly, and as he did so, Joanna raised the flimsy, dark-colored veil that had obscured her features, and her face came into sight, almost shining in the gloom
