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.
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