Standard of Honor (53 page)

“The fury of the breakers among the rocks was such that very few aboard the ship survived to reach the shore. Over the next few days, the local fisher folk and islanders came down onto the shore, as is their wont, to salvage what they could. But the fisher folk found gold in the wreckage there, and the word soon reached Comnenus.

“We have been told that he did not know much at first, only that gold coins had washed up on the beaches
and among the rocks, but that was enough to bring him sniffing. He saw your Great Seal around a fisherman's neck and confiscated it, unknowing what it was. And then, later on, one of his fellows dived down and reported finding chests and boxes filled with gold in the wreckage on the sea floor.

“Hours after that, it appears, word came to him that two more ships, giant things blown in from the westward, had arrived off Limassol and were seeking permission to land. ‘Westward' meant ‘Latin' to Isaac, and he sent back word at once to deny the foreign ships entry. At the same time, he imprisoned everyone who had survived the shipwreck. It was only later, once he had questioned some of the local observers and had a chance to think things over, that he began to see that the two great ships reported by his Cypriots as having sailed away were likely to be the ships off Limassol, and they were therefore likely to contain more of the same treasure.

“His first reaction was to go rushing off to Limassol in order to impound the two ships—one of his own captains told us that. But he did not dare leave the scene of the wreck until he was sure that every fragment of the treasure had been found. He trusted no one and expected neither loyalty nor honor from any of his people, since he never showed any of either thing to them. And so he waited, ranting in his impatience, until every coin had been recovered, and many people took note of his anxiety.

“Several days later, he returned to Limassol, only to find that he was powerless to move against the two
dromons. He had been told that these were enormous ships, but because he had never seen a ship much bigger than a fishing boat—the dromon on the rocks had been smashed to kindling before he reached there—he had had no way of knowing what ‘enormous' really meant, until he set eyes on them. He knew at once that he had nothing with which to threaten these beasts.”

Richard was listening closely, frowning, and André continued. “It was at that point, once he had examined all his options, that he became conciliatory, offering friendship, aid, and hospitality to his unexpected visitors. To give him credit, he had at least sent word earlier to de Bruce that he was not in Limassol but had been detained inland, attending to affairs in Nicosia, and that might have worked had he not been undone by his own people, who told us everything they knew. De Bruce knew precisely, to the moment, when Comnenus had come back from visiting the wreck, and he knew, too, exactly what had been retrieved from the wreckage and what had been done with the survivors and with the bodies of the dead.”

“Wait. You say Comnenus's own people told de Bruce all this? Why then would de Bruce disagree with what Joanna chose to do? He must have known she was right.”

“No, my lord, he knew she was a woman, with little understanding of the realities of war and politics—”

“God's guts, man! Joanna was a reigning queen for years. And in Sicily! She knows more about politics and the way they work than de Bruce will ever learn.”

St. Clair nodded. “Aye, that is probably true. But de Bruce, to give him justice, believed he would have been dealing with Comnenus from strength. Cyprus has no naval strength to speak of, and whatever it has in the way of an army is in sad disrepair, an untrained rabble with no pride and no spirit. There are no knights in all the island, incredible as that may sound. The Emperor has driven them all away to other lands, fearful that they might plot to overthrow him. In short, de Bruce believed he could easily assert his superiority.”

“Not from on board a ship, he could not. He would have had to land first.”

“Aye, sir, and he could have. He had a full company of your own guards aboard—two-thirds of a company at least. Two hundred disciplined men. He believes he could have captured all Cyprus with those, because Isaac's own people would have abandoned him.”

Richard looked dubious, tilting his head. “Perhaps … but perhaps not. In any case, it is not relevant. Joanna put her foot down. What then?”

“That is the most of it, my lord. There is more, but it is all incidental and will come out in answers to your questions as you pose them. For the time being, at least, that is all I have.”

The King scratched his beard in thought, then nodded, decisively. “So be it. You have done well, provided what I need. Now I can make a decision, which I could not have done an hour ago. Within the hour, should I so wish, I can launch my forces against this base-born fool of an Emperor with good reason
and sound conviction. My thanks for this. Go you now and find something to eat and we will talk again later, once I have had time to think about all you have told me. No, wait. The Princess Berengaria … how did you find her? Her mood, I mean. Was she …?”

“The Princess was well, my lord, and in good health and spirits. She will be awaiting your arrival today with great anticipation.”

“Aye, indeed … Was she … What did you think of her? Is she not delightful to behold?”

“To behold … Yes, my lord, she is. Delightful. She will make a beauteous bride and a regal Queen.”

“She will … She will, to be sure. Once more, my gratitude is yours, Master St. Clair. Farewell for now.”

FOUR

A
ndré St. Clair fully expected the King to launch an attack against Isaac Comnenus immediately, but Richard did nothing of the kind, showing good sense and forbearance instead. He sent off a letter to Comnenus early that very afternoon, compiled with the assistance of a crew of bishops, that was astonishingly mild, given the provocation he had received. If Isaac would release the survivors of the wrecked dromon, with all their goods, and return Richard's missing treasures, including the Great Seal of England, which was useless to anyone else, then Richard would take no further steps against Cyprus or its Emperor but would set sail again for Palestine with all his forces and not come back.

And while the letter was being delivered, King Guy of Jerusalem was brought ashore without incident and installed in Richard's royal pavilion, a mile east of the city gates on a heavily guarded hill. The remaining ships and men of Richard's advance squadron came into view on the horizon, sure to arrive before nightfall as predicted. But even before the fleet had dropped anchor in the various spots assigned to them, Comnenus's response to Richard's letter arrived, and as
the envoy bearing it rowed out towards Richard's galley, Isaac Comnenus himself appeared on the beach before the town. He paraded himself in front of a ragamuffin gathering of soldiery, who erected portable barricades before the gates in what André St. Clair, watching from the deck of his own ship and unaware of the King's letter, took to be a display of defiance and challenge.

And that was exactly what it was.

Isaac's response to the King's conciliatory letter was so abrupt and outrageously high-handed that those of Richard's advisers who read it could only shake their heads and mutter about the fellow's obvious insanity. He would not release his captives, Isaac said, nor would he return a single piece of gold. The Latin interlopers, he said, had injured his reputation by invading his territories and treating him as unworthy of their respect, and they had therefore earned his anger and the forfeiture he had imposed upon them. They must now accept the humiliation and the losses they had so justly earned. He expected to hear no more of them, he stated, other than reports of their departure in the immediate future, and he reminded them to be grateful that he had responded at all, since no Emperor would normally deign to have dealings with a mere King.

Several people told André later that Richard stood wide eyed with shock as his chancellor read this response aloud, and then he laughed a savage, barking laugh and ordered an immediate landing of three hundred men-at-arms, screened from attack by two
hundred archers and crossbowmen, on the beach where Comnenus was parading.

They landed within the hour, and although Isaac's defenders came forward bravely enough to meet them, they had never before encountered anything as chilling or effective as the massed volleys of bolts and arrows that Richard's people poured down onto their heads from ships anchored close to the shore. The defenders, including Isaac himself, scattered quickly, running back into and through the town behind them, leaving the field to Richard's troops.

Throughout that evening and the remainder of the night, Richard gave priority to the unloading of his warhorses. Some of these had spent upward of a month at sea, and none was in any condition to be ridden, let alone ridden into battle, but long before dawn that morning the word circulated that Richard was in need of volunteers—two score of them—to ride with him before daybreak along the coast to Kolossi, five miles away, where Isaac and his men had supposedly ended up the previous evening.

As soon as he heard that being shouted to one of the guards on the prow from a night guard on the pier, André, who had been up on deck most of the night, restless and unable to sleep, went looking for his ship commander, claiming his right as one of Richard's vassals to respond to the call for volunteers. But Tournedos, barely risen from his bunk to face the day, shook his head, disclaiming any ability, as a naval commander, to grant such a request from a knight. He
sent him instead to ask permission from the senior Templar officer on board.

André had never spoken to the man in question, a renowned and popular knight called Don Antonio del' Aquila, but he had seen him many times since boarding the ship. He found him now on the long stern deck, leaning against the rail near the sergeant brother guarding the helm, and talking in hushed tones with another dark-faced knight. They were clearly preoccupied, but the knight listened to St. Clair's request, albeit impatiently, frowning at being interrupted, and never taking his eyes off the man to whom he had been speaking. But then he curtly refused his permission, dismissing André with the tone of his voice.

Astonished at the finality of the man's response, André challenged the Templar's right to refuse him. He stubbornly insisted that he had not yet taken the oath of obedience to the Order and could not, therefore, be bound to accept or obey any order that was not a direct command.

Del' Aquila, who was known affectionately within the Templar community simply as Aquila, had been about to resume his interrupted conversation, reaching out to grasp his companion familiarly by the shoulder, but now he stopped and straightened slightly, raising an apologetic finger to the other man before turning back to face his challenger. The flickering light from a lamp on the bulkhead cast shadows on his face, and André expected to see anger stamped there. Instead, Aquila stood watching him calmly for long moments, showing
no discernible emotions. He was a youngish man, in his fighting prime, and André estimated him to be thirtytwo or thirty-three. He had a thick reddish-brown beard, although it looked black in the shadowy predawn light, and he kept it close-cropped beneath the mailed hood of his hauberk. His white surcoat bore the longshanked red cross of the Temple Knights of Outremer front and rear, but in the frontal upper left quadrant of that cross, between his left breast and his shoulder, he also wore the equal-armed black cross with the flared ends, the cross-patté, that had been the original emblem of the Order before its investiture with the bold red cross signifying the Blood of Christ. Very few men wore both insignia, and all of those were knights who had distinguished themselves, and thereby the Order, in battle.

Aquila stood staring at St. Clair, eyes narrowed, teeth nibbling gently at his upper lip, and then he inhaled deeply and turned away towards the other man. “Forgive me, Signor Loranzo, but I must attend to … this. If you would wait for me in my quarters, I shall return as soon as I may.”

The other man bowed deeply and moved away, and Aquila crooked his index finger at André. “Come. Walk with me.”

As André fell into step beside him, the other man asked, “Why do you want to ride with Richard?”

“The Duke is my liege lor—”

“I know that, Master St. Clair, but why do you wish to ride with him?”

André blinked, mildly surprised that the other man should know his name, but he replied, “It is my duty, as his vassal.”

“No, your duty as his vassal is to obey his every command. He has issued no commands in this. His call was for volunteers. Now let me ask you again: why do you wish to ride with him?”

“To—” André checked himself, aware that he was looking for a lie to justify his wishes, then smiled in spite of himself and conceded defeat.

“To feel a horse between my legs again.”

“After so long at sea, you mean.” Aquila had not been looking at him and had not seen him smile.

“Aye.”

“Do you think you are alone in that?”

“No, not—”

“Quite.” They had turned and crossed in front of the disarmed tiller and were now pacing slowly along the right edge of the stern deck, aware of the watching eyes and the listening ears of the guard at the helm behind them, but now, at the farthest point from where the guard stood watching them, Aquila stopped, turning inward so that he and St. Clair were almost nose to nose, and as he did so he grasped André by the wrist and frowned, as though snarling angrily at him, and lowered his voice dramatically. “Do not move. Do not look away from my face. Listen to what I am saying to you. Listen, as we are being listened to! Let us suppose I granted you permission to ride off with your lord. You would ride for perhaps five miles, on a beast
that might prove fit to handle such a distance after a month at sea. And you might encounter this Cypriot Emperor and his crew of fools, after which you might fight them. But you might equally end up on a less than fit horse, on questionable terrain, fighting against men whose skills, though ludicrous, have the potential to be lethal on occasion. Suppose that one of those inept warriors were fortunate enough to strike you down and kill you by accident.” He paused, allowing his words to hang between them, while his eyes never flinched from André's.