The Dragon Throne (8 page)

“Speak your piece, lad,” prompted Nigel with good cheer.

“My lord Prince John sends word that he will see you now.”

The page appeared about to say something more.

“What more,” asked Nigel, “do you have to tell us?”

“My lords, the prince allows me to tell you that he continues displeased.”
Dysplesed
.

“He has kept us mewed up for a full day, and another until nearly evening,” said Nigel mildly. “Like his pet hawks, punished for their mischief.”

The page appeared torn between a sworn duty and some other feeling. The boy perhaps took heart at the sight of Wowen, a lad nearly his own age. “My lords, you may not take your swords.”

 

The four knights left Wowen behind and walked with a dozen black-leather-clad guards across a grassy courtyard.

These men did not respond to Nigel's question, “Is that a magpie among the ravens?” nor did they make any other utterance, marching the four captive knights to a broad door.

They waited a long time before the iron-studded barrier, blackbirds making their crazed, musical laughter overhead, while Edmund's optimism began to fade. As unarmed knights they felt essentially naked, and Edmund realized how foolish he had been to dream of escape.

“What is there to keep the prince,” asked Edmund in a low voice, “from separating our heads from our bodies?”

“Why would he do that?” asked Nigel.

“Ill humor,” suggested Edmund.

“Edmund, if our noble prince suffers a homicidal whim,” Nigel responded with a dry chuckle, “not one of us is safe.”

The surrounding walls were high. The wall guard was well armored, nine men gazing down at the four Crusaders with an air of curiosity. More than one carried a large, double-headed ax.

THE PRINCE SAT SILENT AS THE CRUSADERS knelt.

Prince John gave no sign of knowing they were there, and this troubled Edmund very much. The longer the prince's silence endured, the more clearly the knight could sense the proud man's displeasure.

The meeting room was bare, except for a large oaken chair, occupied by Prince John. The prince wore a bright orpiment-gold mantle, a color so expensive some called it “king's yellow.” In addition to his brilliant topaz ring, the king wore a kidney-red jasper amulet, cunningly engraved with the lance and dragon of Saint George. The king's brother studied a scroll, a list of numbers and words.

It was unusual to see a man reading silently. Most readers murmured as they read, or read the words out in a clear voice. The prince made an absentminded gesture, ordering them to stand, but he did not take his eyes off the black letters before him. Edmund was all too aware of his own stature, the tallest figure in the room. If only I could shrink
.
At last, with a show of indifference, Prince John left his seat, handed the document to a servant, and wandered across the room to a shuttered window. As he did so, he deliberately turned his back on the four knights. It was considered an insult for a prince to turn his back on men of quality during a formal interview, and Nigel lifted his gaze briefly toward Heaven.

John opened the shutter a finger-width and peered at the world outside.

Late afternoon sunlight lanced into the chamber, and for a long time the prince seemed lost in the musical, throaty call of a distant woodcock. A drift of sweet wind slipped into the room.

“My lord prince,” said Nigel, in a tone weighted with respect, “if it is possible for a knight to dare to inquire—why have you asked to see us?”

Nigel's question was abrupt, and although delivered artfully, was close to being impertinent—or dangerous. Even an accomplished knight like Nigel did not ask a direct question to a prince. John ignored the silver-haired men-at-arms, closed the shutter gently, and made his way back to his high-backed chair. He took a long moment to select a pear from a brightly polished silver bowl.

“I myself,” said the prince at last, “did not want to set eyes on you.” His gaze cut to one side, and Edmund felt the princely gaze take him in, weigh him, dismiss him. And look back again.

The prince added, “Someone else desired to see you. Someone whose interests I am bound to respect.”

A distant rustling sound, and quiet womanly voices, began to approach from outside.

The prince instantly stiffened in his chair, and brushed the front of his mantle with his hand. The castle guards along the wall stiffened, too, their eyes locked straight ahead.

Edmund's pulse began to race at the approaching whispers.

The unmistakable process of a very important personage was heralded outside by a flurry of activity in the garden.

A servant plied a broom across a footpath in what sounded like a hurried—indeed, frantic—manner, and pikemen strode unseen somewhere outside, their leather creaking and their boots, in careful rhythm, growing ever closer. Some noble soul was approaching, with a rustle of clothing and the soft whisper of expensive footwear.

As the door opened, Nigel and Rannulf threw themselves onto the floor in obeisance, and Hubert and Edmund joined them.

Edmund turned his head just enough to observe the sweeping skirts of a grand lady enter the room.

“ARISE, CRUSADER KNIGHTS, SO I CAN SEE you,” said a woman's voice—a well-spoken Frankish command.

She entered with several young women, all garbed in flowing sleeves and rustling silk gowns. No household but a queen's had so many female attendants. Edmund stood as he was directed, but he could not look in the royal person's direction, and he hoped he would not have to speak a word. Edmund was aware, too, of the travel-worn figure they all cut, garbed in faded Crusader surcoats.

The prince vacated his chair, and as his mother sat, her son strolled over to the window, examining the untasted pear in his hand.

The queen took a moment to survey the men before her.

“So you are Sir Rannulf of Josselin,” said Queen Eleanor at last, looking at the veteran knight appraisingly.

Sir Rannulf was unable to respond, except to kneel before her. “My lady queen,” rasped Rannulf.

“Arise, arise,” she responded, with a motion of her hand and a nearly manly chuckle.

Rannulf did as he was told, and the queen leaned forward and said, “They tell me that no enemy is safe from you, worthy knight.”

“My lady queen, they speak too well of me,” said Rannulf when he could make a sound. Through his scarred lips he spoke in a rapt tone Edmund had never heard from the knight before.

She sat back and studied the four of them once more. “All of you fought under my son in the Holy Land,” she said. It was a declaration, not a question, but only Nigel understood what the royal lady wanted to hear.

“My lady queen,” he said, “our lord king was well in body and spirit, and blessed by Heaven with victories.”

“But he had not captured Jerusalem,” said the queen.

This remark needed no response. At last tidings, the Holy City remained in pagan hands.

“And the lice and the heat rash got the better of all of you,” she said, not unkindly. “And the flux, cramps, and fever striking half the army, black water squirting from the guts of half the footmen. I know what war is like. But by God, I wish I had been there to see the army of Jesus! What was it like, young knight?”

She was looking right at Edmund, with eyes that were dark brown and golden at once.

She was beautiful as well-loved silver is beautiful, with gray hair and pale skin. Edmund could not speak. He shaped an inner prayer to Saint Michael, provider of strength, and then he heard his voice like an utterance from another room, “My lady queen, we fought—”

Words fled.

Edmund was losing all power of communication. He gathered his will, but still could make no further sound.

Hubert whispered at his side, prompting him.

Edmund added, repeating Hubert's words, “We fought as Heaven gave us the power.”

The queen smiled.

When he could breathe again, Edmund felt that he had passed through an ordeal as challenging as battle, and lifted a silent prayer of thanks.

He allowed his gaze to wander briefly.

To his surprise he recognized one of the members of the royal company—the young woman whose father had been hurt in the melee. And she recognized Edmund—there could be no mistaking that flicker in her emerald eyes.

Without being fully aware of it, Edmund had determined to never look at another woman as long as he lived. He would not be as absolute as Rannulf, who mistrusted and even disliked the sex. But in the wake of his meeting with Elviva, Edmund had a vague impression that he himself would be more like a Templar knight, a man with kindly feelings toward women, but sworn to avoid them.

Despite this sincere inclination, he could not keep an expression of welcome—and even friendliness—from his gaze for a moment. The young woman responded with something like a smile, until a sense of duty recaptured her attention.

“I have a charge for you to undertake,” said the queen.

Not one of the four knights could make a sound, although Hubert made the sign of the cross and Nigel gave a bow.

“My son John, at my request, will send you to Rome,” the queen added, with no further preamble.

“My lady queen!” said Nigel, a gasp of both astonishment and joy.

“You will,” said the queen, “leave at once.”

Edmund sensed Hubert trembling joyfully beside him.

“The prince,” added the queen, “will give you license to take the horses you require.”

The royal lady cocked her head to address the prince. “You will keep these men from journeying like naked kerns to the town of the lord pope, will you not, John?” Kerns were Irish and Scottish foot soldiers of no great reputation and legendary shabbiness.

“As the queen wishes,” replied the prince—with every sign of gentle agreement.

“You will take with you, Christian knights,” the queen continued, “an esteemed young lady and member of my household. She is going on a pilgrimage, to pray in the holy sites of Rome.”

She added, in a voice both sweet to the ear and commanding, “You will defend her with your honor—and your lives.”

PRINCE JOHN SAT IN THE HIGH-ARMED OAK chair.

He was oblivious to the guards nearby, alive only to his own thoughts.

He held the pear still untasted in his hand. His mother, the four crusaders, and the flock of ladies had all just then departed, leaving the faint but definite scent of attar of roses in the room. His mother bathed in the stuff, which she could not actually afford.

The prince gave a quiet, dry laugh. He put a knuckle to his teeth, and bit. He bit hard, but not hard enough to draw blood, he saw when he examined the indentations in his skin.

He would do as his mother wished and let the four knights depart the kingdom. It was as well to please his mother, who was some seventy years old and no doubt would not live much longer. And he had his own reasons for wanting the four wayward knights out of the realm.

He resented them, and now wished them dead—two youthful knights who felt no gratitude, and two weathered knights who dared to challenge John's will. Such men were dangerous, and encouraged others. If a rooster woke a prince, its neck was broken. If a fighting man offended, you set him a dangerous foe.

John was a proud man, and jealous. England did not know it, Prince John brooded, but she needed a ruler of his foresight and ability. Why were Richard's fighting men so devoted to their wayward king?

“Send for Sir Jean de Chartres,” said the prince, bitterness forcing his voice to a whisper.

The page bowed, as these Londoners were taught to bow. It was an awkward sight, like watching a piglet prop its body up on its crooked little hindquarters and try to dance.

The sight very nearly moved one to pity.

 

Jean de Chartres knelt before the prince.

The prince said, “Would you like to taste one of these fine pears?”

A member of the royal family rarely offered a knight any such morsel, and the Chartrian's eyes were bright with both gratitude and caution.

The big knight's hand closed around the yellow fruit in John's palm, the pear warm from the prince's touch.

The prince made a gesture, and the footmen filed out of the room, leaving the prince and the knight alone.

“It was a shame the way that upstart Hubert killed Sir Nicholas,” said the prince. “He learned foul fighting from that murderer Rannulf.”

“My lord prince,” said the Chartrian, both compliant and mystified, setting aside the pear as a prize. “It was all done as Heaven desired.”

“No, I believe that those four knights are dangerous,” the prince allowed himself to say. “They fight like felons—and laugh in their prayers. I was mistaken to elevate the two squires to knighthood, and now I would obliterate my error.”

“I have no reason to show them mercy,” said the Chartrian. “But I am reconciled to God's will.”

That was well said enough, thought Prince John with little pleasure. “I would be happy, and generous in my joy,” the prince continued with a trace of impatience, “if the four knights did not reach Rome.”

“My lord prince, I would please you,” said the big knight. “But I would obey more easily if I fully knew your desire.”

The prince saw that the knight was cunning enough to need explicit orders. John leaned close, putting his lips by the big man's ear. “Travel with as many men as you need.”