“So be it,” Richard said. “I concur. It is my task and my responsibility alone, as Duke of Aquitaine, to make the decision on what is to be done in this matter. When we ride out of here today, Robert, we will go together to visit this vindictive fool of a baron, de la Fourrière, and if he escapes my wrath with his barony intact I will be more astonished than he. I have more than enough pressing problems to occupy my time without having to step aside from all of them to kick the arrogant arses of my petty vassals. And speaking of arrogance, before we even set out, I’ll send a captain and four men to arrest the unsaintly Abbot of Sainte Mère…what was his name? Thomas?” This was flung at Henry, who merely nodded. “Well, he will lose his every doubt, just like his doubting namesake the Apostle, when he finds himself being frog-marched in chains to confront me.”
De Sablé spread his hands. “And then, my liege?”
“And then they will both find themselves dealing with me in fourfold jeopardy, judging them as Count of Poitou, in which domain they hold their power, and then as Count of Anjou, as Duke of Aquitaine, and atop all of those as the future King of England, sired by a father who long since demonstrated his impatience with troublesome barons and meddlesome priests. By my decree, they will agree immediately to quash and annul this ridiculous charge of murder—and the laughable but despicable implication of pederasty against Sir André.” He laced his fingers together. “The contumacious and murderous priests involved will be arrested, tried, and hanged. And should either one of their erstwhile patrons, Baron or Abbott, prove reluctant to proceed with that immediately, I will deal with them and their murderous brood as my father, the old lion, dealt with Becket. So help me God!” The Duke’s voice was chillingly absolute in its sincerity.
“You may stand down, Sir André,” he continued, not bothering to look at the young knight. “You are absolved and this matter is concluded, save for the final details.”
Even before Richard turned to look at him, Henry’s mind had skipped ahead to the quid pro quo that must come next. Richard Plantagenet did nothing without a quid pro quo being involved, and this one had been self-evident from the outset.
“My liege,” he murmured, the rising inflection of his voice turning the appellation into a question.
“Aye, Henry, as you say, your liege.” The King’s mouth broke into a sardonic little grin. “I came here looking for you, but I will now require both of you to entrain with me in the coming venture in Outremer, for only thus will all threats against your son’s life be annulled. André cannot safely remain in France once I be gone. Surely you see that, and you, too, André?” Both men nodded, and Richard smiled. “Then let us be resolved on it. We go to war together, for as powerful as I may be when I am here, I tend to create powerful foes, and these churchly knaves would find a way to arraign you again and kill you quietly as soon as they believed my back was turned.
“So! Henry, you will be my Master-at-Arms. And you, Sir André, will join the Temple.”
“The Temple, my liege?” André eyes widened. “How may that be? I am no monk, nor fitted to be one.”
Richard barked a short, humorless laugh. “Perhaps not now—you have made that amply clear—but such things can be arranged, and you may warm to the thought. But monk or no, you are nonetheless a knight, raised to that estate by my own hand, and you are a St. Clair, of the bloodline that produced one of the nine Founders of the Temple Order. And God surely knows the Order has need of you and will welcome you to ride beneath its black-and-white standard.”
He glanced then from son to father. “Hear me now, and hear what I say. Two years ago—no,’ twas even less than that by half a year—two hundred and thirty knights of the Temple were lost in a single day at a place called Hattin—that was the battle I told you of last night, Henry. But more than a hundred of those were executed as prisoners, after the fighting, on Saladin’s own orders. Think upon that, my friends. This fellow calls himself Sultan, the exalted ruler, but that atrocity alone demands the dog’s death. Two hundred and thirty Temple Knights lost in a single day, and nigh on half of them murdered out of hand when the fighting was all over. And then, hard on the heels of that, he slaughtered hundreds more after he took Jerusalem the following month. And his stated reason for that butchery? That the Temple Knights are the most dangerous men on earth.” His eyes moved from father to son. “Well, they may have been the most dangerous men on earth before Hattin, but he has now ensured that they will be even more perilous to him and his in time to come.”
He ground his palms together again. “But irrespective of its origins, the reality of this slaughter has left us facing a truth with which we have to contend, my friends: The Templars have been worse than decimated, for they have lost five men in ten, not merely one. They may be the most powerful and celebrated warriors on earth, the standing army in the defense of Christianity in Outremer, but not even they can endure losses on such a scale as has been seen these past two years. It has been accepted since the days of Julius Caesar that no military force can continue to function effectively once its strength has been reduced by more than one third of its complement.”
He stopped again, giving those words time to sink home to his listeners before he continued. “There have never been more than one thousand Templars at any single time in the entire area of the Holy Lands. That is not something that is widely known, for most people today think the Temple is ubiquitous and indomitable. But their recent losses have amounted to more than five hundred, leaving a mere fragment of their former force in place. So the Order is hungry for qualified recruits.” He looked directly at André. “They seek young knights, debt free, without worldly responsibilities, and sound of mind and body. Think you that description might apply to you, my young friend?”
André shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “It might, my liege, were it not for the shadow hanging above my head.”
“That shadow has been banished. Forget it ever existed.”
“I wish I could, my liege. But even were I to succeed in forgetting it, it will still be kept alive and reported on by others, perhaps even in Outremer, and the Temple is notably rigid and unyielding in its scrutiny of recruits. I have heard it said, if you will forgive me for being thus blunt, that not even kings or dukes have the power to impose their will upon the Order.”
Henry St. Clair stiffened on hearing his son’s words, fully expecting that they would infuriate Richard, but to his astonishment, the Duke merely smiled.
“True, that is absolutely true, so my influence would normally be little use to you in gaining entry. But look again, if you will, at my friend Sir Robert de Sablé here, and believe me when I tell you that there is more to him than meets the eye. In certain things, Robert has influence that I could never gain. He is, for one thing, one of the finest mariners in all of Christendom, albeit he holds that to have but little import in his life nowadays.” He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at de Sablé, and the knight nodded in return, apparently submitting to some unspoken request. Richard grinned broadly and turned back to the others, drawing the long-bladed dagger from his belt and flipping it into the air, end over end, to catch it easily as it came down. Twice more he did it, and the others watched him, wondering what was to come next.
“I can tell you both a certain secret known to very few at this time. Sir Robert, like you, André, is not a member of the Temple.” He spun suddenly and threw the dagger towards one of the wooden pillars that supported the high roof above them, and it crossed the space as a whirling blur, to hammer itself home point-first into the densely grained timber. In the silence that followed, Richard ambled over and worked the blade free, examining the point critically before he sheathed the weapon again.
“But Sir Robert has been invited, by the Governing Council of the Templars, to join the Order, and not merely as a serving knight but as the newly designated Master of the Temple, to replace the man Gerard de Ridefort, the current Master who has recently been reported missing yet again, believed captured in battle and very probably dead.”
He grinned again with satisfaction in seeing the jaws of both St. Clairs