and I want you to keep him close and take him directly to the King. I know who he is, but that will do us no good if he escapes. He would vanish into the mountains just as quickly and as easily as Isaac has and we might never catch him again. Whatever is going on here, this man holds a key to it, so Richard will want to question him. In the meantime, have you searched the pavilion? Are you sure Isaac is gone?”
Nickon grunted, a sound of sheer disgust. “Aye, I’m sure. We haven’t had time to do a thorough search, for the whoresons only ran a few minutes before you showed up here, but I sent men inside to check as soon as that happened. There’s no bodies in there, no blood, but I don’t know what else is there or what they might have left behind. All I know is, they’ve gone, and from the speed at which they left, they won’t be coming back. You say this knight you captured is French?”
“Aye, one of Philip’s men, left here as liaison with Richard.”
“Then we had best drag his arse in to Richard as quickly as we can and leave it to the torturers to find out what he was doing.” Nickon turned to one of his subordinates and started snapping orders to assemble his men, leaving only four behind to protect the magnificently ornate pavilion, which Richard would be glad to reclaim, against looters.
Richard was furious. He listened in perplexity as Andre recounted how he had seen and then intercepted the French knight, and his eyebrows rose high when Andre described how Dorville had tried to kill him. Only then did the King have the Frenchman brought before him under guard, and Andre sensed, as he watched and listened from a position in a rear corner of the audience chamber, that the King was reluctant to believe ill of the fellow. As his questioning of the French knight progressed, however, it was plain that the monarch’s patience, notoriously short lived at the best of times, was being notably tested by the French knight’s truculence and disdain.
Eventually Richard lost all patience. “God’s balls, do you take me for a fool, sir?” he roared, after one sneering answer to a straightforward question. “D’you think to laugh at me? Well, by the joyousness of Jesus you’ll find that I mislike being laughed at by prancing fops.” He snapped his fingers at the guard captain in attendance. “Take this man belowground and find out the answers to the questions I have been asking him. See if red-hot iron will loosen his tongue more quickly than civil questions can.”
Dorville did not last long before he changed his attitude. One encounter with a heated poker laid against his shoulder was all it took to dispel his hauteur, and the mere threat of facial disfigurement with the same poker loosened his tongue completely. To his credit it could be said, as Richard himself pointed out to Andre later, that he believed he had been successful in his activities and that his efforts could not be undone, and so, sensibly enough, he saw no tangible benefits in suffering disfigurement or mutilation after the fact. Accordingly, once he had gathered himself together and succeeded in pulling the tattered shreds of his dignity about him, he was completely open about what he had done, even evincing pride in his accomplishment.
He had gone to Isaac under cover of darkness, he now confessed, and told him that Richard had played him false and intended to return that night while the Emperor’s followers were sleeping and arrest them all before clapping Isaac into chains. In doing so, he had played deliberately upon Isaac’s well-known terror of being chained up, knowing that the Emperor would hear only the word
Dorville claimed to have acted purely upon his own initiative. His sole intent was to assist his master, King Philip Augustus, to achieve his own designs in Outremer with Conrad of Montferrat. By involving Richard in an ongoing and time-consuming fight here on Cyprus and thereby postponing the departure of the English fleet, Dorville had thought to provide additional time to advance Philip’s purposes. He had acted without accomplices, he said, and he was emphatic about King Philip’s having no knowledge of what he had planned.
Richard listened to all of this with one hand propping up his chin, his elbow resting on the arm of his chair, and when Dorville finished speaking he remained there, thinking about what the French knight had told him. Finally he straightened up and looked at the prisoner from beneath lowered brows, his chin now on his breast.
“So,” he growled at last, his voice pitched ominously low, “you have repaid my hospitality with double dealings on behalf of your own master … and you have thrown me into a war I did not seek. So be it, then. You will spend this war in the chains you used to frighten Comnenus. A double set of chains, I think, as a reward for your courtesy and a symbol of my gratitude.” He lifted his chin, narrowing his eyes as he watched Dorville’s reaction. “You believe I am making sport of you, do you not, with this talk of gratitude? I am not. Were I not grateful, you would be on your way to your execution right now. As it is, I have decided to be lenient and permit you to live a while longer.” His face broke into a tiny smile. “You have given me a perfect reason to impound the Jew’s stallion. He’s far too unsightly to own such a magnificent creature, and I have been lusting after it since first I saw it.”
“My lord?” One of the men standing close to Richard spoke up, and his voice was high and querulous.
Richard glanced at him. “What is it, Malbecque?”
“My lord, Isaac Comnenus is not a Jew. He is Byzantine.”
Richard’s face began to redden angrily. “Not a
“There is the source of my gratitude and mercy, Master Dorville, for you have dropped all these riches into my hands when I could not lawfully have achieved them by any other means. So dwell upon that in your imprisonment. Think upon all you have provided for me and my armies, enabling us to thwart and confound your master more completely than before.” He snapped his fingers. “Take him away and keep him far from my sight. And remember, manacles and leg irons, two sets of each. Go.”
As the prisoner and his escort marched out, Richard called for a council of war with all his advisers and dispatched Sir Henry, as Master-at-Arms, to send runners to summon them to attend upon him immediately. He then turned to talk with some of the other notables around him, and Andre took the opportunity to slip away quietly. Richard appeared to be deep in conversation with one of the senior English barons, and Andre brought himself to attention, bowed deeply towards the monarch, and spun on his heel to march out. He took less than three steps before stopping abruptly as Richard called his name.
“My lord?”
Richard came right up to him and laid one hand on his shoulder, then leaned forward to whisper confidentially, “I heard that it is likely to rain heavily tomorrow morning. One of my huntsmen says so and I have seldom known him to be wrong in such things. You had best take a wagon and tents with you.”
“My lord?” Andre could hardly believe what he had heard. “Are you saying I should proceed with the hunting expedition, after this, when we are in a state of war?”
“Of course I am. What else would you have me do? I doubt we will be fighting pitched battles tomorrow morning in the woods where you’ll be hunting. Isaac has no army, let me remind you, and my guess is that he’ll run for Nicosia, although he might go due east and hope to find some of his ships in Famagusta. I’ll dispatch a squadron of galleys there in the morning and they’ll be waiting for him if he arrives. Either way, he will pose no risk to you or to your charges … Which reminds me that I hold his daughter here, as hostage, at Isaac’s own insistence. I shall have to think about what to do with her …” He thought about it for the space of four of five heartbeats, than dismissed it with an impatient flick.
“No matter. In the meantime, be sure you take tents with you and a wagon to carry them, along with anything else you might need, including extra men, servants, in the event you have to spend more time out there than anticipated. If it does rain heavily, and the women become soaked, they could make your life more than simply miserable. Dry them off, keep them warm, make them comfortable, feed them well …” The pause that came then seemed ominously long, but then he added, “And keep them out there for as long as you can.”
Andre’s stomach lurched, for he could smell trouble coming towards him as the King continued. “You will earn my gratitude for every additional hour you can win me. Oh, and I have discussed it with the Deputy Master, de Troyes. He understands my situation here, and since you are not yet sworn a brother of the Order, he has acceded to my wishes in this matter, so you may go in good conscience. Here comes your father again, so I will release you now. He and I have much to discuss before the others arrive, and this could end up being a long session. Think yourself well out of it. Fare thee well.” He clapped Andre on the shoulder and sent him on his way,
