Standard of Honor (52 page)

“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, André 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. André 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 André 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. André 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. André 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 André 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. André 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.

Richard looked up as St. Clair approached and raised a quizzical eyebrow as he saw the wet trail, but he said nothing about it, merely nodding and holding up a finger in a mute request for a few moments more in which to complete his business with the cleric. In a low voice that André would have had to strain to hear, had he been curious, the monk read back to the King what he had written, and after listening to all of it Richard nodded and dismissed the man.

“André. You have the information I require?”

“Aye, my lord.”

“Excellent.” He raised his voice for the benefit of the crowd at his back. “Leave us, all of you, for you already have enough to talk about and some of you have much to do. But be sure that if I see you between now and when I finish with Sir André here, it had better be from a distance where the thought of being overheard or listened to would never occur to me. Off with you.
Wait!” He held up a hand to stay them as they began to move. “Percy, you have your instructions and I require you to pass them along to your own people now, so that when the squadron following us arrives, everything will be in readiness for it. No one to go ashore until I give the word, but once you have that, I want the landings to go smoothly. Neuville, yours is the task of setting up my tent and guarding it. Disembark your guardsmen from the dromons immediately, and make sure that they are well supported by companies of archers and crossbows, then set us up on yon high eminence, there on the right, overlooking the beaches and the town's main gate. The so-called Emperor of this sad place may yet be there, within the gates, so make you sure he can cause us no nuisance.

“And you, my lord of Richmond. Take you my royal barge across the bay in one hour's time, but not a minute sooner or later, and see to it that King Guy is safely, and not too quickly, ta'en aboard and ferried ashore an exact hour after that, so that by the time you set his foot on land, our royal enclosure is prepared and securely guarded. Neuville, that should give you three hours from this moment. And now away, all of you, and leave me to my dealings with Sir André.”

As his entourage scattered, muttering among themselves and not a few of them casting glances towards André that ranged from simple curiosity through suspicion to outright hostility, the King beckoned André forward and waved him to the single chair beside his own at the table.

“Come, sit and talk to me. The bulk of the fleet will be delayed, for another day or two at least—too many damaged chicks and raddled old hens among the flock. But a squadron of our fastest vessels, loaded with some of my best troops, will be here by nightfall.” He looked around at the port ahead of them. “So, seeing no burning buildings in the town, I take it that my guards are still aboard the dromons and my ladies are both well and in good health?”

“They are, my lord, and looking forward to being reunited with you.”

“And what of this creature Comnenus, has he threatened them or molested them in any way?”

“No, not directly. The lady Joanna keeps her wits about her at all times and is a fine judge of men and their motives. It was she who interpreted this Isaac's early actions and decided, once he began approaching her with conciliatory gestures and invitations to go ashore, that it would be safer and more prudent to maintain a distance between him and everything aboard the two remaining dromons.”

“Good for Joanna. But one can only presume that de Bruce would have reached the same conclusion on his own, had she not been there.” He hesitated, watching André's face. “Do you not think so?”

“No, my lord, with respect, I think not. I spoke at length with the commodore this morning and he gave me the distinct impression that he does not approve of the direction taken by the Queen. He believes that, had he been at liberty to accept Comnenus's initial invitation
to parley, much could have been achieved without hostility. He regards your sister's stance as being an interference in his affairs and an affront to his authority.”

“Hmm. And do you believe he is right, that he could have settled matters amicably with Comnenus?”

“No, my lord. Comnenus had already spurned our requests for assistance when our ships arrived and sought leave to use his harbor. He had by then despoiled our dead and seized our treasure from the wreckage on the rocks. It was only after that, once he had guessed that the surviving ships held more treasure, that he became conciliatory. He had no ships capable of attacking our dromons, and no army sufficiently organized to mount a land-based attack. So he had no other option than to try to win our ships by guile. Your sister was right to do as she did. Had she not done so, no one can really say what might have happened, but there is a real possibility that we might now be involved in a situation with royal hostages and a lost war chest held in ransom.”

“Aye, I've little doubt that's true.” The words emerged as a deep growl. “Tell me about this Comnenus. All that I have heard is hearsay and reports at distance. I presume you have garnered more immediate information?”

“Aye, my lord, as much as I could find.” St. Clair sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers beneath his chin, settling his thoughts into sequence and only faintly aware of the coldness of his feet in their heavy, wet boots. “He is a strange man. I found that out immediately—a tyrant of course, and crazed, some say.
He is largely detested—not merely disliked—by his own people, whom he treats savagely. He is Byzantine, and we knew that, but it seems an uncle of his truly was Emperor in Constantinople. That's what Isaac swears, anyway. He arrived here some six years ago, from Constantinople, and contrived almost immediately—no one seems to know exactly how—to wrest control of the entire island from the Empire. It was that feat, apparently, along with his supposed imperial family connections, that inspired him to name himself Emperor.

“As I said, everyone seems to hate him, and yet he maintains his hold on power with an iron grip and a mailed fist. His own people talk of his grasping greed and his treachery, and his cruelty is supposedly hard to believe. I had it from de Bruce this morning, and he had heard it earlier from a number of people in the town of Limassol, that many of the island's most prosperous and wealthy families have fled beyond the seas since he seized power six years ago. And those who remain do so only because they cannot escape. They are tied to their holdings here and they live in a state of despair because of Isaac's greedy demands and depredations of their property.”

“The man sounds like a monster,” Richard growled, sublimely unaware that he might have been listening to a recitation of his own methods of raising taxes to furnish his war in Outremer. St. Clair, however, noticed no irony.

“That is nothing,” he added. “Apparently he treats his own officers and underlings so viciously, flogging
and fining them at every turn, that they hate him almost to a man.”

“Then why don't they kill him? That makes no sense at all. Does the fool know nothing about leadership? What kind of madness would drive a man—a leader of any description—to abuse the very people he needs most to keep him in power? The fellow clearly is crazed, sitting atop his island empire. Like this nonsense with the dromons. Did he think for a single moment that no one would come looking for such lost treasures? Did he think, for even the blinking of an eye, that those who came searching would be weak and witless? The man is an idiot.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” St. Clair replied. “The tale is told—and widely believed—that when he was much younger and apparently a strong and extremely able warrior, he went to war in Armenia among the Byzantine armies of the empire, and was captured and sold into slavery. According to this story, which persists even though Isaac himself seldom speaks of it, he spent many years thereafter in foreign lands, always shackled in heavy chains like a savage animal because he was so strong and rebellious. He came out of the experience with a rabid, deep, and abiding hatred for Westerners like us—he calls us Latins—because we kept him chained up for all those years.” He paused, then added, “That might explain his initial inhospitable reaction to the discovery of two strange Latin ships anchored off his shores, seeking assistance.”

“Aye, when you say it like that, I am tempted to think it might … but it makes me no less anxious than
before to smear the wretch into a paste, the way I would a crawling spider. What else do you have? What about the early developments in all of this?”

André shrugged. “All accidental and not at all unusual, from what I could discover. The storm blew itself out eventually here on Cyprus and the three dromons had been driven by high winds the entire way. De Bruce believes that was due to the sheer bulk of the vessels. The vastness of their sides and stern surfaces acted as sails, catching greater amounts of wind than any other ships could harness, and consequently driving their big hulls farther and faster than any of their fellows. Be that as it may, they caught sight of the island at dawn of the third day of the storm, when the wind and the seas had just passed their peak but were still immensely powerful. The dromons were already too close to the shore by then and the one nearest to the land was driven onto the shoals and shallows that the islanders call the Rocks of Aphrodite. Once there, solidly aground, it was battered to pieces by waves and wind, and there was nothing either of the other ships could do to assist.