Standard of Honor (73 page)

An hour later, the sun long since risen, it was evident that something had happened to detain Alec, and André resolved to wait another half hour before returning to his own tent. It was pointless even to think of going in search of his cousin, for he had no vaguest idea of where to begin looking, and he could not even guess at what kind of changes would have been wrought in the general camp layout by the overnight addition of a hundred thousand men. But he had no desire to remain here alone for much longer, for the sun was growing measurably stronger and he had not thought to bring any kind of shelter against it, reasoning that their business there would be concluded in short order and that the two of them would then return to do whatever needed to be done.

He smoothed a rectangular area of sand with one hand and stuck a poniard, hilt first, into the center of it to create a sundial. Then he sat back to watch the shadow creep slowly towards the line that he had traced as marking half an hour. When shadow and line crossed, he waited a few minutes longer, then rose up and sheathed his blade, moving to saddle his patient horse.
He had thrown the saddle across its back and was tightening his girths when he heard an approaching noise and looked up to see Alec, his face solemn.

“Well, welcome to you, Sir Knight of the Mournful Face. You took your time arriving. Where have you been?” He was still working beneath the horse's withers, tightening the straps, but when he heard no answer to his gibe he straightened up and looked across to see no warmth in his cousin's face. “Alec? In God's name, man, what's wrong? You look as though you have lost all you value. What's happened? Is it de Sablé?”

Alec Sinclair managed to shake his head, but strangely, as though he were numb or impaired in some manner. Then he swung his leg over the cantle and slid loosely to the ground, collecting himself fluidly and with ease. But still his eyes were unfocused.

“De Sablé is well. I left him only a short time ago. Come and sit down.” He moved past André on stiff legs and lowered himself to the depression in the sand where André had waited for him. André felt apprehension coiling strongly in his gut, and he patted the horse's flank and left it standing there as he went to sit on the sand beside his cousin.

“Alec, tell me what is troubling you. You went to look for de Sablé yesterday, so why did you have to meet him today?”

“Couldn't find him yesterday. He had too much marshaling to attend to. But I remembered what you had told me about his joining the Temple, and so I left word at the commandery that if Sir Robert were to appear, he
should inform him that I had come seeking him. He sent for me this morning and I've been with him ever since.” Alec sat up straight and drew a great breath, and André could see that his cousin was in some kind of torment, his eyes haunted with awareness. Before he could say anything, however, Alec bent forward quickly and seized a double handful of the fabric of André's surcoat, pulling him close and into an embrace.

“André— Your … your father is dead.”

The words, emerging choked and close to indistinguishable, washed over and through André with no effect. He heard them, and a tiny portion of his mind may have absorbed their meaning, but their significance had absolutely no effect upon him. He was highly aware of the discomfort caused by the position into which Alec had pulled him, and he could feel the links of his cousin's mailed shoulder digging painfully into the skin of his face. He even felt slightly embarrassed about the intimacy of this unexpected embrace, thinking they might be compromised were anyone to see it, but the words he had heard held no meaning for him. His father was dead. He knew that must be important, but his face was pressed against his cousin's clothing, against his armor, and he realized that Alec Sinclair bore the same aroma as his father, the same beloved, unmistakable tang that marked Sir Henry St. Clair, and in that instant, in the space of half a heartbeat, the barriers fell and he heard what Alec had said.

Afterwards, much later, he would recall Alec gazing at him solemnly, his eyes wide and concerned as he told him
how Sir Henry had been waylaid and struck down, with two of his junior officers, as they made their way back one night from a popular hostelry towards their quarters in Famagusta, where they were coordinating the details of a mixed strike force, horse and foot, that was to be led by Guy de Lusignan against Isaac Comnenus's forces the next day. Their assailants had not been identified, let alone captured, but there was ample evidence that the attack had been carried out by one of several well-organized guerrilla groups operating out of the foothills to the north of the city.

Sir Henry St. Clair had fully discharged all his responsibilities to the liege lord whom he had served so faithfully throughout his life. He and the two officers with him had received full military honors in their funerary rites, Alec Sinclair said, and the King himself was in attendance, accompanied by an entourage of some of the senior lords and barons of his holdings throughout Christendom, including Sir Robert de Sablé. The Archbishop of Auxienne had offered prayers for the souls of the slain heroes, and Richard of England himself had spoken highly of his Master-at-Arms and how he had learned much of what he knew about fighting under Sir Henry's tutelage.

All of these things, André knew in moments of lucidity over the course of the following few days, might be cause for pride and pleasure at some unknown date in the future, but for the time being, while he was feeling the cavernous emptiness that had filled him, it was all meaningless.

When they returned to camp, Alec Sinclair, fretful over his cousin's condition, set about seeking the best in medical aid that he could find, for André had fallen into a state of deep melancholia and refused to be shaken out of it. And as was not unusual among the Frankish populace of Outremer, many of whom had now lived there for generations, he chose to engage the services of a celebrated Muslim physician whose acquaintance he had made several years before, although he would tell no one where or how. The truth was that Saif ad-Din Yildirim, reputedly a first cousin to one of Saladin's most trusted associates, was in fact Shi'a and an associate of the Assassins.

Yildirim promptly set André St. Clair upon a regimen of liquid foods and powerful opiates, designed to keep him abed and asleep most of the time. There was no logical explanation, he said, for Sir André's reaction to the death of his father, but he had seen similar cases among men of his own religion and was quite sure that the effects would soon pass, aided by sleep and rest. And sure enough, Alec discovered, so it was.

Yildirim suspended the administration of the opiates on the morning of the fourth day following the onset of André's strange symptoms, and André St. Clair awoke at his usual time before dawn the next day with no memory of having been ill. When Alec questioned him, he remembered receiving the tidings from Alec, and he was subdued and saddened, but he now behaved as any other young man would on losing a well-loved parent.

A little later that same day, André came seeking his cousin in the knight's new quarters close by the Templars' tent, the great, bannered pavilion that served the Templars in the field as a mobile commandery. Although Sir Alexander Sinclair would have refused to place himself so close to the heart of the Temple Command a mere week earlier, the reason for his profound change of heart was simple: Sir Robert de Sablé's personal pavilion now stood squarely beside the Templars' tent. Scarcely less elaborate than its imposing neighbor, de Sablé's pavilion had been erected several days earlier, after Sir Robert had formally resigned as King Richard's Fleet Master and accepted his new posting as Grand Master Elect of the Order of the Temple of Solomon. Alec had sought out de Sablé as soon as he heard that the veteran had arrived, and had offered his personal services immediately and without reservation, for the two of them had known each other for more than two decades and had been Raised to the Brotherhood of Sion in the same ceremony, on a warm August night near the ancient town of Carcassonne. De Sablé had embraced Sinclair enthusiastically, and instantly appointed him to his personal staff. And that, very markedly, had been the end of Alec's loss of popularity.

André found Alec working diligently when he arrived, frowning over a letter he was writing. He sat quietly until his cousin had completed what he was doing and sat back in his chair.

“I owe you a great deal, it seems, Cousin. I have been told that there is no better or more renowned physician in these parts than Saif ad-Din Yildirim.”

Alec flicked his fingers in a gesture of dismissal. “Nonsense. You owe me nothing. You are all the kin I have out here, and selfishness insists I look after you, since you are a mere child. Yildirim is an old friend and was happy to oblige me in this. How are you feeling now? Any ill effects from the opiates he fed you?”

André smiled. “None. But I seem to remember dreams that I would enjoy examining more closely now.” His face sobered. “Let me ask you this again, Alec, but one more time and for my own satisfaction, simply so I can be sure that my memory is serving me correctly. Am I correct in believing that my father was struck down at night, returning to his quarters from a hostelry where he had eaten with two friends?”

“Two associates, both his subordinates. All three of them were killed, the assailants unknown. We have to believe there were multiple assailants, since otherwise the odds would have militated against all three being killed. Your father's age might have worked against him in a long struggle, but the men with him were both serving officers, both experienced veterans, and both at the top of their profession of arms. Those two would not have gone down easily. Ergo, multiple assailants and most probably from ambush. But we have no way of knowing how many or who they were.”

“And this was when, do you know? How long after I had left Cyprus?”

“Hmm. De Sablé said you would ask that. Three days after you left Limassol. Your father had been shipped to Famagusta that same day, the day you left, before daybreak, and had arrived there that same night. He had been in Famagusta for two days when the incident occurred.”

“So I was still at sea … I understand the King himself was there to speak for my father at his funeral?”

“He was. He traveled to Famagusta for the funeral rites. He and several others, including an archbishop.”

“Aye, well the King's presence would have pleased the old man. I am grateful to you, Cousin, for this courtesy.” He inhaled loudly and straightened his stance. “I really came here this afternoon because you and I have unfinished matters to discuss. We never did talk about the material you gave me, and I had spent the entire night absorbing it all. I have since spent another hour, today, reviewing what I remember, and I am now ready to discuss these matters further with you, if you so wish.” He paused, but for no more than a moment. “I recall you were to meet with the imam, Rashid, the day the tidings of my father's death arrived. Was that meeting a success?”

“It did not take place. As soon as I found out what had happened to your father, I sent a message explaining that I had been rendered unable to attend upon Rashid al-Din at that time and requested that we might arrange another meeting. He was courteous enough to agree, although in fact he had little choice, but that is neither here nor there. The meeting yet lies ahead and
nothing has been lost, other than a few days of time which is not pressing.”

“I see. Then I regret that my personal woes had to interfere in your duties. Accept my apologies for the inconvenience I have caused you. It was not deliberate.”

“What?” Alec's face broke into a grin as he stared at his earnest cousin. “Are you twitting me? You expect me to believe you know nothing at all of what has been going on here these past few days? André, I love you dearly, but you ask too much of me in this.” He stopped, then hesitated again on the point of speaking, and then the grin faded from his lips. “You really don't know what has been going on, do you? André, my failure to meet with Rashid al-Din had nothing to do with you. Even had you been in perfect health, he and I would not have met … Do you remember the eclipse? No? Nothing at all? Well then, we had one, on the afternoon of the day following your … indisposition. In the middle of a heavy skirmish between a large contingent of their cavalry and an equal one of ours, God drew a curtain over the face of the sun. Three hours it lasted, from start to end, and it put the fear of Christ into our soldiers. We of the brotherhood knew what was happening, of course, because our savants know how to predict such events, and the Saracens were unsurprised by it, but our ordinary soldiers and sergeant brothers knew nothing, and they were panic stricken, convinced that God Himself was hiding His light from them.

“Since then, we have all been waiting on the edge of the abyss. Acre is tottering, Cuz, on the verge of falling.
It has been common knowledge for more than a month now. There is only so much that flesh and blood can withstand, and then it all collapses, and the garrison of Acre has been subsisting on nothing at all for months now, defying all the odds. Anyone with a brain in his head knows the siege is over, in all but fact. And since the eclipse, for the past four days, Richard has been negotiating with Saladin's envoys, and no one expects the status quo to last for more than another day or so.

“You may think you have been sick for a spell, but you have barely been inconvenienced. Richard, on the other hand, has been deathly ill. The doctors call what ails him
leonardia
and have all kinds of high-sounding explanations for it, but the truth is they have not the slightest idea of what is wrong with him. His hair is falling out in clumps, his gums are rotting, and his teeth are loose enough to wobble with a fingertip. He is a mess. And yet, throughout his illness, he has been involved in discussions with Saladin, seeking a resolution to this war. They bargain back and forth and neither is really inclined to surrender anything to the other. But at least while they are negotiating, no one is dying. What point was there in speaking, in the interim, to Rashid al-Din? That would have been vanity piled upon vanity. Thus, we have both waited to see what will transpire in Acre.”