Standard of Honour

“May I ask you something in the spirit of our brotherhood, Sir Robert?”

“Of course. Ask freely.”

“The Duke seems mightily pleased with your appointment as Master Elect of the Temple, but for the life of me I cannot understand why that should be so. The moment you join the Temple, he will lose his influence over you, since no man can serve two masters and the Order is subservient to no temporal authority. It is unlike Duke Richard to be happy over losing a strong vassal. Can you shed light upon that for me?”

De Sablé laughed outright. “I can, and simply. His pleasure stems from the fact that my appointment, if it comes, lies in the future.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t understand. You said ‘if it comes.’ Why should it not?”

“Oh, it will, but when it comes depends on whether or not the current Master, Gerard de Ridefort, be alive or dead. We suspect he may be dead, but we have no certain knowledge, for conditions in Outremer today are chaotic. The information that trickles back here to us is not always accurate, and in some instances not even true. So if de Ridefort yet lives, then I will wait until my services are required. And in the meantime, Duke Richard is well pleased because he has a use for me. I am to be his Fleet Master on the voyage to the Holy Land. He is assembling, ostensibly with his father’s blessing, to this point at least, a great argosy, the greatest the world may ever have seen, to transport his armies, livestock, provisions, and siege engines by water, rather than overland.

“Think about it, lad. I am of the brotherhood, and until recently my Council-assigned task has been to tend to the trading ventures of a house established by certain families friendly to each other.” The wording was noncommittal, but André St. Clair knew exactly what de Sablé was saying. “So, in order to fulfill my fraternal duties, I have spent decades learning everything I could of shipping and of cargoes, including the navigational and mathematical skills of commanding argosies at sea. Richard needs my services in that, and I, on behalf of the brotherhood, require his, in order to ensure that I reach Outremer alive and quickly. Surrounded by an enormous fleet, the odds in favor are greatly increased, and the Temple’s risk of being and remaining Master-less is set largely at naught.”

St. Clair nodded. “My thanks to you for that. It makes things much clearer. Now, what will you require of me from this time on, Sir Robert? Whatever you may have in mind, I can begin immediately. My father will see to the establishment of a crew to run these lands while we are gone. How long will we have, think you?”

“A month at least would be my guess, but it might be less, or even greatly more. Richard is keen to reach England, to set about the marshaling of his armies and his fleet, but for that he will remain dependent, as he always is, upon the goodwill and cooperation of his father the King. That is not a prospect that fills our liege lord with joy, although I believe that Henry will be at pains to appear tractable on this occasion, since he wants Richard safely out of England and bound for Outremer.

“But then, too, there is this ongoing matter of Philip’s injured pride over the Vexin, and the imaginary indignities suffered by Alaïs. That, too, must be dealt with and settled to the satisfaction of both sides before any of this business can go further forward.”

The silence that followed those words was brief, but fraught with meaning for both men. Alaïs Capet, the sister of King Philip Augustus, had been betrothed to Richard Plantagenet since childhood, shipped to England into the care of King Henry and Eleanor at the age of eight. But at the age of fifteen she had been seduced by her fiancé’s father, who was old enough to be her grandfather even then, and she had remained his mistress ever since. It had been a short-lived scandal nevertheless, for by then Queen Eleanor had already been locked up in the prison where she would remain for more than a decade and a half, and no one, least of all Alaïs’s cuckolded husband-to-be, really cared what became of the French princess.

The real grit in the dynastic ointment of the alliance between England and France, far more scandalous than the liaison between a lecherous old king and a silly, precocious girl, had sprung from the flagrant love affair between Alaïs’s brother Philip and her betrothed husband, Richard. That the two men had been bedmates for years was something that was widely known but rarely discussed. The two of them had bickered for years, frequently in public, like an ill-matched husband and wife, with Philip Augustus playing the shrewish, jealous wife and neither man giving a thought to the situation between King Henry and Alaïs. Now, with Philip actively preparing to quit France to travel to the Holy Land with his army, the entire matter of Alaïs’s dowry had arisen again between the two men, and this time it would not be easily deferred.

Alaïs’s dowry, the cause of friction between the two royal houses now for more than a decade, was the rich and powerful French province called the Vexin, given as a marriage incentive and a token of the goodwill of the House of Capet to the Crown of England when the child Alaïs had traveled to that country to live with the family of her affianced groom. Originally intended to marry Henry’s elder son, Prince Henry, her commitment had been changed in favor of Henry’s younger brother, Richard, after the young Henry’s early death. But irrespective of the reality that no marriage had yet taken place after nigh on twenty years, the strategic reality underlying the resentment and ill will over the disputed territory was that the boundaries of the Vexin lay less than a day’s hard march from the French capital of Paris, and that had resulted in its being grasped and jealously held by King Henry, and latterly by Richard, ever since Alaïs first arrived in England.

Philip had wanted the Vexin returned to France, maintaining, with some justification, that since no marriage had been consummated, the dowry now stood forfeit and was the rightful property of France. Henry and Richard, who had used the intervening years to build a solid base of operations within the Vexin, on the very fringes of the French Kingdom, naturally and vehemently disagreed, but they had lost much of their argument in the conference at the French town of Gisors in January of 1188, when Philip had managed, with the assistance of the Pope, to have the Vexin placed in escrow, under his name, until such time as Richard honored his bargain and married the Princess Alaïs.

The silence passed without comment from André, and de Sablé continued as though it had not occurred. “That could take days, or it could take weeks, depending on how well the two of them can settle their differences and make amicable arrangements to share the leadership of the campaign.”

“Will they be joint commanders?”

“Probably, in some form. But Richard is the soldier, Philip the negotiator who much prefers to administer rather than to fight. On the surface that should work well for the survival of the alliance, but between us, as brothers, neither man will settle for less than the primary leadership. For the time being, at least, Philip is the only king involved in this venture, and having that acknowledged by everyone acts an insulation to his pride. But as soon as Richard becomes King of England, that will change, and in reality—something you know as well as I—Richard will die before he gives up the military glory of being supreme commander of the expedition. Sooner or later, sparks will fly on the wind over that, and they will probably start fires where no fires are expected. But that will singe neither you nor me.

“Be ready to leave for England within the month, then, but before the coming week is out, get you to Tours or to Poitiers, seek out the brotherhood and report what has occurred here. From then on you will be instructed as required. I may or may not return this way from Paris, depending upon Richard’s urgencies, but you will be summoned, no matter which way we go back to England, so be prepared. And now I must go, for he is waiting for me and you know how little he likes to be kept waiting, so I will bid you adieu, and we will meet again soon.”

The two men embraced briefly, brethren now, and de Sablé went to join his Duke, leaving Sir André St. Clair with much to think about.

THREE

May went by, and then June, without another word reaching the St. Clair estate from Richard, but Sir Henry barely noticed the time passing. He was too intent upon regaining the conditioning that he had lost since his wife’s death, aware that even before she died, he had surrendered to a life of comfort and sloth, smugly and silently claiming the privilege of an older man who had served his lord’s—and before that his lady’s—purposes well. Now, having learned all too belatedly that his self-indulgence had been both premature and ill advised, he felt the full weight of his age as he struggled to regain some of his former strength and the associated skills that had been his stock-in-trade.

He had begun by learning to ride again, suffering the pains of the damned as his body rebelled against the disciplines his muscles had forgotten. The riding itself was unforgotten, of course, but his stamina had atrophied and his old bones and sinews protested against the indignity of being battered and bruised as he fought grimly to recapture the ability to spend long hours and days in the saddle without respite.

He rode for five hours on the first day of his renewed odyssey, and when at length he returned to the castle and climbed clumsily down from the saddle, almost falling as his feet struck the ground, his aching muscles were screaming at him for rest. But he ignored them. Instead, he forced himself to walk into the training yard and take up his sword, after which, alone and face to face with a foot-thick, upright balk of solid oak that had been hacked and dented for decades by the weapons of trainee recruits, he launched himself into the ancient, elementary exercises designed to teach a novice the basic techniques of swordplay. He swung his sword against the post for more than an hour, religiously following the basic drills until he could no longer summon the strength to raise his arms, and then he staggered to his chamber, up the familiar stairway that he thought would never end, and fell face down on the bed like a dead man, before the sun even came close to setting.

He woke up late, in broad daylight, and barely had the strength to raise himself to his feet. Every muscle in his body felt rigid, cramped and corded like old, gnarled wood, and his buttocks and inner thighs were bruised as though they had been beaten with steel rods. He lurched towards the well in the courtyard, recovering his powers of movement very slowly, and doused himself in icy water, cursing savagely at the shock of it, but not as loudly as he would have liked, for fear of scandalizing the servants. He toweled himself dry with a piece of sacking, surprised to find himself feeling a grudging sympathy for all the young novices he had ground through the same punishing routine for so many years without a thought for their pain and misery.

When he was dry and feeling slightly fresher, he reeled towards the kitchens on legs that were achingly inflexible and still unsteady, unaware that no one, including the faithful Ector, had yet dared to speak to him. Then, when he had eaten, he made his way to the stables and called for his horse, only to discover that he was absolutely incapable of mounting it because his stiff old legs would not stretch far enough to permit it. He called irascibly for a leg up from a sturdy groom, and then had to suffer the additional indignity of requiring his feet to be placed in the stirrups, since his legs were not limber enough to permit him to find them unaided. By the time he clattered out of the cobbled yard and through the gates, the entire staff of the castle was holding its breath, waiting for him to explode as he had in bygone days, but when he disappeared without incident they heaved a collective sigh of relief and went about their daily affairs.

It took two full weeks for his body to begin adjusting to the demands he was thrusting upon it after such a long period of idleness, and there were several of those days when he believed he could no longer subject himself to such unending pain and punishment, but Henry St. Clair had never shirked his duty. He had, in truth, spent a lifetime training other people mercilessly, drilling discipline and obedience and acceptance into callow students, and he now used himself no less harshly than he had used them. He had no other choice, for he recognized his own weakness and would have died of shame had young Richard Plantagenet come back and seen him before Henry himself was ready to be seen.

But then came a day when the pain of hauling himself into the saddle seemed less severe, and when the bite of his swung sword in the late afternoon felt cleaner, somehow, the arc of its swing more crisp and decisive. After that, working each day harder than the day before, he improved rapidly in every area: bodily strength, stamina, agility, and horsemanship. His face and hands grew dark from riding daily in all weathers, and although his muscles appeared to him to be no bulkier or more solid, he could nonetheless feel them increasing in strength with every day that came. He could swing his sword now against the post for hours on end, smashing out slivers and splinters of the heavy oak, with only minor intervals of rest between attacks, and he exulted in the joy that simple ability brought him, for it was undeniable proof that he was hardening himself. Even his armor appeared to have grown lighter nowadays, he noticed, and he was barely aware of its bulk and rode fully armed and armored at all times.

Early that June, he shared his table with a French knight who had been passing by and claimed his hospitality for a night. His guest informed him at dinner that warfare had broken out again between the kings Philip and Henry, and that Duke Richard, snubbed yet again by his father in the matter of the accession to England’s throne, had sided openly with Philip against King Henry, joining the French king in besieging his own father in Le Mans, the town where Henry had been born, and the place he was said to love more than any other. The knight, whose name was du Plessey, told Sir Henry that he had left Le Mans under siege two days earlier, carrying dispatches south, by way of Tours and Poitiers to Angoulême on Philip’s personal behalf. In spite of persistent questioning by his host, however, he was unable to provide any information about either André St. Clair or Sir Robert de Sablé, with whom André had been traveling constantly since Richard’s visit in April, so Henry was unable to ascertain whether his son had been with Richard’s forces at Le Mans.

Then, mere weeks later, on the sixth of July, a beautiful summer afternoon, André arrived home alone, in prime condition and glad to be back in his own territories, even though it would be for but a few days on this occasion. He, too, was on his way to Angoulême, it transpired, to deliver official documents from Sir Robert de Sablé in Orléans to the preceptor of the Temple commandery there.

André’s arrival threw Sir Henry’s entire household into a frenzy of celebration, for the young man was dearly loved by everyone and it had been months since anyone had seen him. Henry had accepted and accommodated the general excitement with good humor, sharing his son generously on the first day and night of his unexpected homecoming and making no attempt to engage him on anything more important than the standard generalities being bandied about by everyone else at dinner that night. It was not until the rest of the household had retired and even Ector had been sent to bed that father and son were able to sit and talk together over a jug of Henry’s beloved pale yellow wine, purchased unfailingly each year from his favorite vineyards in the neighboring province of Burgundy, less than a hundred miles to the east.

Much of the idle talk throughout that day had been about Sir Henry’s recent training regimen, with everyone eager to deliver his or her own report to André on the startling improvements in his father’s appearance and overall health, and now, when André sought to bring the subject up again, Henry waved his comments aside.

“We have talked enough about me and what I have been doing. I am far more interested in you and your activities. What have you been doing? I have been presuming that you were with Richard’s army, since he seems to want to keep Sir Robert de Sablé close to him, and from the single letter you sent me last month, I gather that wherever Sir Robert goes nowadays, you go, too.”

André tipped his head, twisting his mouthy wryly. “Not always, Father, but I admit Sir Robert has taken a keen interest in my welfare and has been extending himself on my behalf ever since the day he chose to believe my story.” He smiled more openly then, his voice growing less formal. “If the Temple Knights refuse to have me, it will not be Sir Robert’s fault. He has decided that I am suitably qualified to be a Templar, and I am tempted to agree with him now, having taken time to think upon what is involved. Would it displease or disappoint you, sir, were I to become a full-fledged member of the Order?”

“A Templar monk?” Henry was surprised by the question. It had never occurred to him that his son might take up the burden of monk-hood. He sat frowning for some time, twisting an end of his mustache. “I really have no answer for that, André. Would it displease me? I see no reason why it should, on first thoughts. And yet already there are second and third thoughts spinning in my mind. Would it disappoint me? Hmm…Two years ago, when your mother was alive, it might have, for she always dreamed of having grandchildren, but now that she has left us, God rest her soul, the urgency of that regret is gone, too. You are my only son, and the last of our particular line, which means that if you die without sons, there will be an end of us.” A tiny smile flickered briefly at one corner of his mouth. “Some might think that no great loss, I am sure. We have cousins enough, but none that are really close, and the one of those you most admire is already a Temple Knight and therefore a monk himself. So, should you decide to join the Order outright, you would be in good and noble company.” He thought again for a few moments, then concluded, “No, André, I should be neither displeased nor disappointed, so be it that was what you really wished to do. And providing that I were able to spend time with you in Outremer before you took final vows, I would have no complaints.”

“You know it would mean that I would have to give this castle and all my possessions to the Order upon your death?”

“I understand that, but what does it matter? There will be no one else with any rights to the place once I am dead and you become a monk. Better, perhaps, to donate it to the Order, where it may serve some useful purpose, than to leave it to be squabbled over after your own death by grasping relatives. No, I am convinced—if that is your wish, your chosen course, then so be it.” He clapped his hands together once. “Now, tell me about the world out there. What is happening beyond my gates that I should know about? The last thing I heard was that Richard and Philip were besieging King Henry in Le Mans. Is that debacle still going on?”

“No, not at all. It is over, long since. The city fell after only a few weeks, in late June. Richard turned the populace out and burned the place down ten days ago. King Henry escaped just before the city’s surrender and fled south, towards Chinon, and Richard followed hard on his heels as soon as he had issued the burning order. I was in Tours last night, at the Temple’s commandery there, and in the course of the evening I heard several tales of what has happened since then, but I can attest to the truth of none of them. There are so many reports, from so many sources, that it would be foolish to attempt to distinguish truth from falsehood among them.”

“Tell me some, at least, of what you heard.”

André shook his head in disgust. “Some say the old man is fallen gravely ill, on his deathbed, his spirit finally crushed by the wanton destruction of his native city. And I heard that he was robbed by his own people after the sickness struck him—the followers and fawning hangers-on who ever flock about him—and he now has nothing left.”

Sir Henry’s brow creased into a quick frown. “That is iniquitous. But you say Richard pursued him. I presume he would have caught up with him once the old man fell sick, if not before. Did he then do nothing to stop this theft you describe?”

“I doubt he was aware of it, Father. Richard had other matters on his mind, and I gather he was ruthless in prosecuting them.”

“Other matters…such as what?”

“It surprises me that you would even have to ask. The Vexin, first and foremost. Facing death, Henry did what he would never do in life. He named Richard heir to England, officially. That was three days ago, on the third of July, according to what I heard last night. At the same time and by the same report, he decreed that his wife, Eleanor, be freed from her prison in the tower at Winchester in England, where he has kept her these last sixteen years. And he formally relinquished any claim he might have held to the Vexin, agreeing to hand over the Princess Alaïs to Philip Augustus and Richard, so that Richard can marry her and settle the matter of the Vexin dowry—and with it, the entire issue of the English/French agreement to the Holy War—once and for all.”

Sir Henry sat silent for long moments before he murmured, “The old man must be sick indeed, to have given up so much…and Richard must have pressed him hard.”

“Aye, Father, and he pressed even harder than that. Henry was forced to surrender castles and estates that he has owned all his life, and to cede territories to Richard that were never in dispute. They say that Richard left him nothing at the end, not even dignity. I also heard that, after he had conceded everything Richard demanded of him, the King prayed aloud that he might be allowed to live until he could achieve a fitting revenge on his ungrateful son, but died immediately thereafter, denied even that satisfaction by a God whom he flouted too many times. I can’t swear to the truth of that, though. His death, I mean. Others present disputed that. Bear in mind I am only reporting second hand.” André’s tone assumed a note of bitterness. “Yet I heard, too, that Richard began weeping and praying for his father’s soul a few hours before the old man died, starting the moment he had wrung everything he wanted from him.”

“Who would have told you such a thing?” The frown on Sir Henry’s face had deepened to a scowl of disgust. “Who would dare speak such words? Whoever he may have been, he was no friend of Richard Plantagenet.” André made no attempt to reply, and his father went on. “You said you were in the Temple commandery in Tours, did you not? And it was there you heard such things talked about openly, among strangers? I find that hard to credit. Among the knights themselves, in their own quarters, yes, I could accept that they might discuss such things in privacy. But you are no Templar, and thus to have heard such tales, you must have been among the public crowds.”

“No, Father, not quite.” André shrugged his shoulders very gently, managing to deprecate his own importance with that gesture. “I was privileged to be in the company of a pair of Temple Knights whom I have come to know well these past few months. They work closely at all times with de Sablé, acting as couriers between him, Duke Richard, and the King of France on behalf of the Order. It was as their guest that I was able to overhear so much.”

“Aye, but even so, André, unless drastic changes have recently been made, personal friendships have no standing in such things, not when it comes to oaths and secrecy. You are not of the Order. You do not belong, and you must therefore be treated—and mistrusted—accordingly. But I mislike the entire smell of this, the disloyalty involved in even speaking of such things.”