Standard of Honor (62 page)

“My lady,” he said, sitting up quickly now but keeping his voice low and turning his head to scan the passageway behind him. “What is it? What's amiss?”

She waved her hand at him and shook her head, and he became aware that she had knelt beside him to awaken him and was now sitting back on her heels, staring wide eyed at him, her hand still fluttering apprehensively over her breast. She was wearing proper feminine clothing, he noticed now, albeit night attire. Voluminous and concealing, it shrouded her body from his eyes, yet made him instantly aware that her body was there, soft and feminine and close enough for him to touch, were he to stretch out his hand. As he thought that, she stopped fluttering her fingers and held her hand still, the palm upraised towards him, and took another great breath.

“Lord, sir, you frightened me. I did not expect you to awaken so violently … or so noisily. For a moment I thought you would bring everyone running to see if we were being murdered in our sleep.”

St. Clair hitched himself higher, finding a more comfortable seat, aware of the night chill where the blankets had fallen from his shoulders. He was wide
awake now, but he rubbed finger and thumb in the corners of his eyes, clearing them of the last vestiges of sleep as Joanna began to speak again.

“There is nothing amiss, Sir André. I merely found myself unable to sleep. I did not wish to disturb my sister Berengaria, so I thought I might see if you would be good enough to talk with me for a time. I have remade the fire …”

Puzzled, but flattered, St. Clair unwrapped himself from his blankets and moved towards the fire, where, for the next few minutes, they both worked hard at overcoming the awkwardness they felt over what had taken place. Berengaria had not stirred, so it seemed that they had not made too much noise, but St. Clair got up anyway and went quietly out to the middle chamber, carrying one of the candles. He met no one and heard nothing other than the wind beyond the front entrance, and soon made his way back to where Joanna sat by the fire.

They talked quietly together for more than an hour, and St. Clair enjoyed it thoroughly, for Joanna began by asking for his opinion of Guy de Lusignan, both as a ruler and as a man, and when he had obliged her, she responded by giving him her own opinion, and it was greatly different from anything he had ever heard anyone else say on the topic. As a woman, she said, she found herself attracted to the fellow, because he presented himself as a portrait of so many of the things women looked for in a man: tall and strongly built, yet proportionally pleasing, he was comparable to her own
brother, if not quite so massively muscled. His teeth were excellent, she remarked, white and even, with no gaps, no obvious spaces, and no visible rot. He kept his dark hair and beard clean and neatly trimmed, too, she said, which was sufficiently uncommon to be noteworthy, and his skin was deeply tanned and pleasant to behold, the backs of his fingers, hands, and wrists covered in a noticeable scattering of fine dark curling hair that she and many of her sex found attractive and even alluring.

He had undergone severe hardship in the past few years, she told André, but even so his clothing, while faded and threadbare, had been well maintained and kept clean. Richard had, of course, provided him with new clothing, raiment befitting his regal status, but even so, the condition of the old garments spoke for itself. This was a man who was fastidious and painstaking over appearances. But all of that being said, she continued, her attraction to him, woman to man, had been purely superficial.

“Had he struck me as being more than surface-deep, had he really appealed to me, underneath, as a man, I would never have taken the time to examine him as closely as I did. But the more closely I observed him, the less I saw to like. He is weak. Having been raised with Richard as my brother and then spending years as wife to my dear husband William, I understand and recognize strength. I also recognize its absence, the lack of it, with great ease. Our noble King Guy is not reliable, at depth. Which is, of course, why he has earned the
reputation that the German Montferrat, and now Philip Augustus, seek to use against him—” She broke off and inhaled a deep, sibilant breath. “But he is the rightful King, for the time being, and that is … inconvenient, to say the least, for my dear brother.”

She had been gazing into the fire as she talked, but now she turned her head to look André directly in the eye. “Do you understand why I say that? Have you spoken with anyone of the politics surrounding this entire affair?”

“The religious politics, you mean? Yes I have. But I cannot convince myself that it is as important as everyone else seems to think.”

“You—?” Joanna stared at him in amazement. “I cannot believe I heard you say that. You do not think it is important? Do you not, then, believe in God?”

St. Clair laughed, easily. “Of course I do, but what is at stake here, in this squabble between de Lusignan and de Montferrat, has nothing to do with God. It is a struggle between two groups of men—very large groups, be it said—all of whom purport to worship the same God. But one group calls itself the Eastern Orthodox Church and is ruled by a patriarch archbishop, while the other calls itself the Roman Catholic Church and is ruled by a pope. Each swears, calling upon the full authority of Heaven to attest to its righteousness, that it holds the one, correct, and inarguable means to achieve salvation. And both desire to govern the land where Jesus lived, because both believe it to be sacred, and both believe
there is worldly treasure to be amassed by controlling it. Think you I am being cynical, my lady?”

She had been looking at him through narrowed eyes but now she laughed and shook her head in what looked like admiration. “No,” she drawled, “not cynical, not really. But I think you are a very dangerous man.”

“How so, my lady? I am but a simple knight.” “Aye, but a simple knight with his own ideas and his own way of looking at things most people never become aware of. That, sir knight, makes you highly dangerous, to people who would wish you to behave as they think fit. What do you think my brother should do in this instance?”

“I believe he is already committed, my lady. He has recognized Guy and given him sustenance and support. I cannot say he would have done so quite as willingly had Philip not thrown his support behind de Montferrat, but the die is cast now. Before that, I know the King was under ever-increasing pressure from Rome—he is surrounded by a plague of archbishops and bishops as you know—to safeguard its papal interests in Outremer, and most particularly in Jerusalem, should we ever win it back. But this turnabout by Philip, in support of Montferrat and the Orthodox camp, would seem to fly deliberately in the face of the Pope, and that mystifies me, for I would not have thought Philip brave enough or defiant enough to go directly counter to the Pope's wishes and authority.”

Joanna merely nodded. “You may be right, or close to it. Perhaps he has reached an agreement of some kind
with the Eastern Church in Constantinople. It would surprise me greatly were I to discover that there was less scheming among the followers of Orthodoxy than there is among the followers of Rome.” She sat silent for a moment, then added, “What are you smiling at? Did I say something amusing?”

St. Clair's smile widened. “No, my lady, you said nothing amusing. What amuses me is that I have yet to hear a man say what you just said. They are all, by and large, far too afraid of the Church and its power ever to dare say such things. I agree with you completely, but hearing you express your opinion surprised me, that is all. I could not help but smile.”

“Hmm. Spend more time around me, Sir André. I will soon have you wheezing on the floor, clutching your ribs in pain from laughing. One of the saddest things about being a woman is that you are not supposed to think, or even to be capable of thought. Even my brother Richard subscribes to that belief— one of the few masculine perceptions of women he shares wholeheartedly with every other man. But the Churches, both of them, Eastern and Western, are run by and for men, so what can a mere woman do, other than hold her own opinions and express them when she can?”

André nodded in agreement. “Aye, well, whatever has caused Philip to side with Conrad, it has drawn a strong dividing line between the factions, so that Richard now stands squarely in Guy's camp. Although I dare say he would declare that Guy stands in his …”
Before Joanna could reply to that, they were interrupted by an explosive snort from the bed behind them, and both of them turned to see Berengaria, eyes tightly closed and her mouth making sleepy, sucking noises, turn over to face them and then subside back into sleep, her unbound hair obscuring much of her upper face and her bare neck clearly visible in the scoop beneath the edge of her blanket.

“Think you those lines will remain drawn once we arrive in Outremer?” Joanna was looking at him again, and St. Clair shrugged.

“I think, my lady, that much of that will depend on Saladin and on the situation that we find in force when we arrive there. If the Saracens come against us hard and fast, then they may achieve the effect of fusing our forces into one effective whole. But should Saladin even begin to suspect the kind of strife that besets us now— and the man did not become the Sultan of all Islam by being a blind, unseeing fool—he will hold back his armies and allow us to destroy ourselves. And we would do that, left to ourselves, Christian against Christian, Orthodox against Roman, through petty bickering and venal jealousies and greedy politicking. Pray he never does find out.”

“I will, because I will be there myself, so you need have no doubt of that. I might even pray for you, too. Not that I am much of a prayer. I am too much like you, I suppose, for I have a mind of my own and I prefer to think for myself, and that displeases a surprisingly large number of people.” She hesitated, then added, with a
tiny smile, “For all I know, it might even displease God. In any case, I might pray for you.”

St. Clair smiled faintly. “I would be grateful for that, my lady.”

“Oh, do not say that, Sir André. For a while there, I was considering seducing you … and for that you truly would have been grateful to me. But I decided instead that I like you, and so chose to leave you to your destiny, which may be sufficiently complicated to confound you already, without any contributions to your debauchery from me.”

“I—” His mouth remained open and his eyes grew wide, and she smiled lazily at him, enjoying the play of emotions and reactions that he could neither control nor begin to understand. He became convinced for a few moments that he had misheard her, until his eyes on her face told him otherwise. She put a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh, and when he appeared to have mastered himself and overcome the urge to say anything, for fear of sounding stupid, she spoke again, her voice quiet and gentle.

“Will you not ask me then what I meant about leaving you to your complicated destiny?”

He was frowning at her now, and shook his head in a gesture that was almost unnoticeable. “No, my lady, I think not.”

“Are you aware, then, of having a destiny?”

“All men have destinies, my lady.”

“No, Sir André, that is not so. Emphatically not so. All men—most men—may have fates awaiting them,
but very, very few have destinies. Destinies change the paths of peoples and of empires, André. I believe you have such a destiny. And so, I believe, does my beloved brother, in his own twisted way.”

“Forgive me, my lady, but I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“I know that. That is why I find you so attractive.”

Joanna's stare was so direct, so challenging, that St. Clair found himself unable to hold it, and he turned his eyes away from her, thinking furiously and unaware that his own gaze had returned to Berengaria.

“You find her beautiful, do you not?”

It took several seconds for the import of what Joanna had said to penetrate his awareness, for he had been looking at Berengaria's sleeping face, oblivious to what he was doing, but now he stiffened and straightened his shoulders.

“I think I misheard you, my lady.”

“I am not your lady, André. I might lie with you and enjoy you, and you me, but I could never be your lady. But Berengaria could, and probably will be, albeit secretly and very quietly.”

St. Clair could hear his heart pounding loudly in the pause that followed, and when Joanna spoke again it seemed to him he could hear a smile in her voice. “Would you like to bed a queen, Sir André?” She paused again, briefly this time. “Come, sir, it is time to grit your teeth and banish blushes. You may bed both of us, would you but say the word. Then we would all three be pleased enough with our lot, and
life could go on with never a wrinkle to mar its smoothness.”

André did not even dare attempt to answer, for he was afraid, yet far from convinced, that the Queen of Sicily had lost her sanity, and the thunder of his own pulse was deafening in his ears. He sat motionless, making no attempt to look at her, and she bent forward and took him by the wrist, tugging at him.

“André, look at me. Look at me, and listen! Look at me!”

He turned his eyes with painful slowness to look at her and found her frowning at him.

“Sweet Jesus,” she said, more to herself than to him. “You are even more innocent than I suspected. You are unfit to be permitted out alone and unguarded. André, listen to me, and if you have never heard anything before in your life to do with women, hear this.” She squeezed his wrist with both hands now, this time hard enough to cause pain, and he flinched and looked directly at her.

“Are you listening to me? Good. Now hear this, from a woman with no wish to deceive you and a Queen with no need to lie. Berengaria is yours for the taking. I am, too, but there is naught in it for me but pleasure. For you and Berengaria, on the other hand, there is much more at stake. You are to beget a son on her, an heir for Richard.”