Standard of Honour. Jack Whyte

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СКАЧАТЬ attendants that she was traveling north and west, towards Angers, to visit yet another cousin, whose husband had sent an escort to accompany her. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that no one has come seeking her here.”

      “Hmm…” Richard crossed the floor and stood behind his chair, grasping the knobs on its high back. “Explain, if you will, why you did not tell your father you knew this woman? It would have saved everyone a great amount of grief and frustration.”

      André’s face had flushed bright red before Richard finished speaking, and he nodded, miserably. “I know now how foolish and misguided that was, but I only saw it today. It had not occurred to me before. I was distraught when I reached home that day and at the time it seemed the right thing to do…to protect her name and reputation.”

      “And where were you the following morning, when the Baron’s men came to arrest you?”

      André St. Clair’s eyebrows rose as if in disbelief that anyone could ask him such a thing. “I was at the Devil’s Pit searching for her body. I had not slept all night and could not believe that two bodies could vanish without trace. I found the tracks my father’s man had reported, and followed them to edge of the pit. Then I attempted to climb down into the hole, but it proved impossible. Within twenty paces down from the only point of access on the rim, I reached a spot where I could descend no farther without falling to my own death, and when I attempted to turn back I almost despaired of climbing out again. It took me more than an hour to make my way back up and even then I would not have succeeded without help at the end from Jonquard, whom my father had sent to find me and to warn me to stay far from home. He found me and pulled me out.”

      Duke Richard moved around his chair and sat down again, silent after that, staring at the younger knight, then turned to Sir Robert de Sablé.

      “Robert? What think you?”

      De Sablé inhaled deeply, and Henry, noticing the flattening of his nostrils, the frowning brows, and the implacable set of the man’s mouth, braced himself for the condemnation he felt sure must follow. But de Sablé turned his eyes instead to where the Duke sat watching him. Unfazed by Richard’s gaze, he shook his head slightly and raised one hand in a plea for patience and time to make his decision, while André, who had most to lose or gain from what would be said next, stood still, looking at no one.

      Having watched the young knight as he was telling his tale, de Sablé now believed the man implicitly, and he was making a great effort to contain his own sense of outrage. No one would ever accuse Robert de Sablé of being naïve, and he had been fully aware all his life of the rampant corruption among the clergy at all levels of the Church’s hierarchy. But his knowledge and his critical acumen had been sharpened through a more radical circumstance than any that influenced the vast majority of his fellow men. Robert de Sablé was a member of the secret Brotherhood of Sion. He had been admitted into the Order on his eighteenth birthday, and since then he had learned much, and studied more, about the Order’s teachings, and the accuracy of its lore and its archival sources regarding the errors and misguided policies of the Catholic Church over the preceding thousand years. The corruption within the Church was worldly and cynical, certainly, and it cried out for correction. But murder and rape such as were involved here was beyond his experience and insulted his credulity. He drew himself upright.

      “My lord Duke,” he said, his frustration evident in his tone, “I know not what to say, other than that I am convinced we have heard the truth spoken here. But admitting that, I must admit, too, my own relief that the burden of responsibility is yours and not mine. You are Duke of Aquitaine, and this matter rests squarely within your jurisdiction, but I fear I can offer nothing of guidance in how you must proceed henceforth.”

      Richard rose to his feet again and resumed his pacing, his palms grinding together relentlessly, his eyes shining with a zeal that Henry recognized with both pleasure and misgiving.

      In the course of the years he had spent shaping, training, and grooming the boy, he had learned to read Richard Plantagenet like a book, and now he found himself observing the Duke dispassionately, guessing, before Richard even opened his mouth, at what he would say. When swift, unprecedented judgments and decisions were required, Richard had proved, time and again with overwhelming consistency, that no man in Christendom, even his own formidable father, could match him in ruthless and precise decisiveness. Richard was brilliant, cynical, mercurial, overwhelmingly ambitious, relentlessly manipulative, and every inch the warrior Duke, and his proposal, whatever form it might take, would, Henry knew, be simple, clean, straightforward, and drastic. He clasped his hands together in his lap and crossed his ankles, knowing from the Duke’s expression that a decision would quickly be forthcoming. Even so, the swiftness of Richard’s response surprised him, demonstrating clearly to the older man that, once again, his former protégé had made up his mind beforehand and that his consultation of de Sablé had been no more than a formal courtesy.

      “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, СКАЧАТЬ