lands and warmer climes. He had known many women with dark hair and dark eyes, so it was not merely her coloring that made her different; in fact in all his life, now that he thought about it, he realized that he had only ever met four women who could properly be called blond, with flaxen hair and bright blue eyes; four, out of … He stopped there, unpleasantly surprised to discover that he could not supply that number, even for his own use. Four out of how many? How many women had he known to any degree of intimacy? Or even known well enough to feel attracted towards? Very few, he knew, and he set out to count them, working backward from Eloise de Chamberg, who had died in the woods of his father’s estate the day that indirectly caused Andre’s accession to the ranks of the Temple. Several he remembered well and easily, including all four of the flaxen-haired women, none of whom, he was surprised yet again to discover, he recalled with much pleasure. But then, when Berengaria stirred again and lowered the letter, he abandoned those thoughts and focused upon her.
She did not so much as glance in his direction. Her lips, full, red, were softly pursed, he saw now, the corners of her eyes gently wrinkled as she stared off into some unseen, private distance. Gently, absently, she scratched softly with one fingertip at the fabric of her bodice, beneath the sudden swell of her breasts, unwittingly drawing his attention back to her abundant femininity. Did she, could she, know that her future husband was a man-lover? And if she did, could she hoodwink herself into thinking she might change him? Andre really had no experience in such things, and he made no moral judgments on the matter. Some such men he could quite easily accept as friends and comrades, ignoring their proclivities without discomfort, while others of their ilk—and there appeared to be more of this kind than of the first—he much preferred to avoid completely, finding them to be less tolerant of others than they expected others to be of them. By and large, however, he was content to live his own life and leave them to theirs. But from his own observations he had learned, inarguably, that such men tended to flock together, thriving upon mutual attraction, and they had little time, and less use, for women. He had also seen enough of them sufficiently advanced in age to prove that theirs was not a condition one outgrew. It was not a phase to be passed through and then forgotten. Andre was convinced that this condition—he knew no other word to describe it—was a permanent thing, an immutable state of being, and he suspected that the love of a mere woman, irrespective of her ardor or fidelity, would be powerless to change it. He had no doubt that Richard would perform his duty and provide an heir from Berengaria, but neither had he any doubt that, once that task was done, the King would leave the woman to the rearing of the child, while he went off to frolic with his friends. That was the lot of many women, he knew.
He felt himself frowning, perplexed by Berengaria’s apparent lack of concern over something so selfevidently destructive. Could she really be blissfully unaware of all of this? She was but newly arrived here, from a sheltered home, judging by all he had heard, although that thought caused an uncomfortable stirring at the back of his mind, a faint memory of mutterings from several years before, linking Richard romantically with her brother Sancho. He thrust that thought aside and began again.
She was newly arrived here, and had not yet been sufficiently exposed to strangers to cause any pollution of her thoughts concerning her future marriage. No one would dare risk giving such offense, not against Richard Plantagenet, and not by furtive whisperings. Who other than Joanna, acting selflessly as friend, future sister, and adviser, could have told her?
Besides, this wife was a queen, born and bred with duty ever present in her mind, and the duty of a queen was to bear sons, just as the duty of a king was to sire them. Richard had undertaken publicly to set aside his lustful, unnatural tastes and breed an heir for England, and Andre, thanks to the high regard in which he held Richard as hero, had no difficulty, when he thought about it in that light, in believing that he would.
Joanna, having now finished reading, addressed Andre. “My brother says I am to trust you completely and to confide in you without reservation …” She looked across the table at Berengaria. “Did he say the same to you, Berry?”
The Princess nodded, and Joanna turned slowly back to Andre, tilting her head a little to one side and regarding him with wide eyes. “I wonder, can you have any knowledge of how great a tribute he pays you in that? I have never, ever known my brother Richard to say that of any other man. You must be a very signal and singular young man, Sir Andre St. Clair … But we have much to discuss, so let us be about it. Richard has asked me several questions about what has happened here since we arrived, and he wants you to hear my answers. I can only presume he has asked the same of Berengaria.”
“He has,” the Princess agreed.
“Well, then, would you prefer to speak with each of us alone, or may we do this thing together, all three of us?”
“Together would probably be best, my lady, unless you object. We are comfortably placed, unlikely to be disturbed or overheard.” He pointed to the open hatch over their heads. “Providing, be it said, that we keep our voices low. That opens on the deck above, and I suggest that we proceed as though there were a largeeared spy perched up there, with one hand cupped over each ear. My lady Joanna, would you like to speak first?”
They sat and talked in low voices, the three of them, while the pattern of sunlight crawled across the floor of the cabin, and when it eventually faded towards nothingness, Andre summoned help from the deck and they paused in their discussions until candles and new lamps had been brought in and lit. St. Clair had much to think about when he left them and returned to his own ship, where he immediately set about making notes on what they had discussed. By the time he sought his cot that night he was almost exhausted, and he fell asleep thinking of both women, seeing their different beauties separately in his mind’s eye and regretting, perhaps for the first time, that his status as a Templar would soon divorce him from any opportunity to spend such a guiltless, pleasant interlude in the company of women.
RICHARD’S GALLEY DID NOT ARRIVE until late the next morning, and when it did appear it was accompanied by two more of his galleys, but there was no sign of any following fleet on the horizon behind it. Andre boarded the boat that Tournedos had provided for his use and made his way to the King’s ship as soon as it dropped anchor, but even before he reached it he could see that he had been preempted by a larger boat from one of the three unknown ships he had seen arriving the previous day, and he murmured to his helmsman to keep distance between them and the strangers. The foreign craft was a medium-sized barge, painted in red and deep green and crewed by a team of eight oarsmen. It had a stern platform capable of seating ten men, for Andre counted all of them, all knights and all fully armored and bearing their own heraldic identities, none of which he recognized.
His curiosity was now fully engaged, for it seemed to him, as he watched the unknown knights clamber aboard the King’s galley, that they had an air of hard use about them: their shields, the few he could see, looked peculiarly old and worn, almost shabby, as though from long use, and their chain mail had a scrubbed look, too, almost a burnished finish, that intrigued him. The devices of their personal insignia seemed faded, too, the colors leached and dowdy. He watched as the armored knights crowded the galley’s deck, seeming to absorb every available inch of space, and he signaled to his own helmsman to pull even farther away and wait.
Time passed slowly after that, but moments after the last of the boarding party had clambered aboard, the barge that had carried them eased back from the galley’s side to make way for a much smaller boat that emerged from the other side of the ship and made its way slowly forward to await yet another passenger, this one departing. Andre sat up straighter as he saw the man approach the ship’s side, and recognized the stern, frowning, eternally humorless face of one of his best-known and least liked compatriots, Etienne de Troyes, the Master of the Temple in Poitou and the highest-ranking member of the Temple Order in the current expedition. De Troyes stepped down into his boat without looking around, then seated himself in the stern and pulled the hood of his mantle over his head as his single oarsman pulled strongly away from the galley.
It was almost an hour later by the time the group of ten visitors returned to their barge, and Richard himself accompanied them and stood looking down at them until they were under way. Andre knew the King had seen him, but he sat waiting until Richard glanced in his direction and beckoned him in before turning away.
The last of the storm had long since subsided, but the water was still choppy and the waves sufficiently unpredictable for Andre to misjudge his timing in leaping from his boat to the netting on the galley’s side. The boat’s side dipped just as he jumped, and he fell short, clawing at the hanging nets and narrowly avoiding falling into the sea. He climbed aboard the royal ship with his legs soaked from the knees down, and with seawater squishing between his toes he left a puddled trail of footprints on the decking as he walked towards the stern, where Richard now sat dictating to one of the clerics. Behind them, a gaggle of officers, onlookers, and hangers- on hovered, eyeing St. Clair as he approached and making no secret of their disdain for his wet appearance. Andre kept his face expressionless and ignored all of them, the King’s presence forcing him to resist the urge to drop his hand to the hilt of his sword.
