The Dragon Throne Read online

  The late King Henry, father to Richard and John, had endowed Bernard’s studies, saying that the wise man was an ornament to his court. The de Laci family had an estate near the Seine at Honfleur, and land near the village of Beer along the English coast, but they had never been wealthy enough to thrive except by serving the crown. Bernard had confided to Ester that the old king would rather hear of Caesar’s military victories in Gaul than the Nature of Virtue, and that the new king, Richard, had little use for either. In contrast, the legendary Eleanor of Aquitaine had enjoyed the consolations of philosophy during the long winter nights away from her sons, and often asked the scholar to read to her.

  In recent weeks the queen had kept to her own chamber, plagued, some said, by illness. Ester knew that the queen drew strength from solitude, an unusual trait. Constant companionship, song and chatter, filled the days of rich and poor.

  It was rumored that Queen Eleanor had followed John’s journey here to make certain that he did not cause too much mischief in Richard’s kingdom. In a world in which the eldest son inherited most of the wealth and power, younger sons were often lean and restless, and Ester reckoned John as hungry as any man alive.

  “Ruth?” her father called weakly from his bed.

  It was the name of Ester’s mother, dead these long seasons ago.

  If Bernard was surprised to see his daughter sitting beside him, and not his wife, he gave no sign. He reassured Ester, silently forming the words, “Don’t fear for me.”

  Some people said the right combination of syllables could catch the Devil’s attention. Sometimes Ester was frightened at the way words in the open books of ancient learning seemed to dance and shift in candlelight. Her father was a wise man, and had explained to his daughter the dignified life of a Stoic, but now Ester wondered if too many hours with a pagan philosopher might have put his soul in jeopardy.

  By any purely rational measure, Ester realized, her father was close to death.

  Before nightfall it began to rain outside, the soft music of falling drops against the wooden window shutters. Reginald searched his patient’s chest with his fingers, pressing gently. Her father gave a moan without waking, and Reginald met Ester’s eyes.

  “The damage may be great,” he said. “As I had feared.”

  He sat with Ester long into the night, as the candles burned down and began to gutter. Ida set out a new candle, a long white taper, as Bernard sank from a restless half-awakened state to an uneasy slumber, and at last into a deep torpor, sweat beading on his brow.

  Ester silently renewed her vow to go on a pilgrimage to Rome. But it was enough to challenge her faith, the way her father’s breath slowed down so completely. He held it and kept it shut within his lungs to the count of twenty of her own heartbeats before he exhaled again—a long, phlegm-choked sigh.

  Besides, her vow, while solemn, had been rash. She had neither gold nor rich jewels. While it was true she dressed herself with care, she had stitched her gown herself, with her own silver thimble and thread.

  No one in the queen’s court had a robust purse. A pilgrimage to Rome was a costly undertaking, requiring horses and armed protectors. Such a journey was beyond her means, and beyond her hopes.

  As though to remind her of this, Heaven seemed to chide Ester for her idle promise. Her father lifted a hand to point out something only he could see, some vision in his fever dream.

  His hand faltered.

  And fell back.

  8

  AT SOME HOUR WELL INTO THE NIGHT, Reginald felt for the pulse of his patient, made the sign of the cross as he muttered a prayer, and said, “I’ll be here when day breaks.” He hesitated, and added, “Ester, you should seek rest yourself.”

  She used a soft linen to gently bathe her father’s face and hands. Our Lady’s watchfulness upon the living never ends, Ester knew.

  But she felt some sympathy for the doctor, well-meaning for all his pride. “Perhaps your star charts will foretell some joy for you,” she offered, troubled by the shadows under the doctor’s eyes.

  “Only one hope would bring me joy,” the doctor responded, once again touching her hand with his. “Aside from the sound of Bernard’s laughter again, as he betters me at chess.”

  When they were alone with the sick man, Ida brought Ester a lamb’s-wool shawl against the chill of the spring night.

  Ida de Mie was a year younger than Ester, and likewise unwed. She had stitchwork beside her, an embroidered griffin, pale gray wool against a green field. The fabric was reworked remnants from a minstrel’s tunic, the beefy Rahere le Grand, who had died at table on Saint Stephen’s Day, facedown in his soup. Ida and Ester had refashioned the fine wool, fixing it so that no eye could detect the old thread-holes or the way the fabric was gently faded. Ida and Ester were equally skilled at needlework, and knew the feather and the chain stitch as well as they knew the stories of the Our Lady’s miracles.

  Ida’s parents had both drowned when an ancient foot-bridge across the River Exe had collapsed during the feast of Saint Agatha three winters before. This personal loss had encouraged in Ida a tendency to offer trenchant opinions, none the easier to bear because they were usually accurate.

  “The doctor chews cinnamon bark,” asserted Ida in her usual quiet monotone, “to sweeten his breath.”

  “I have never noticed,” Ester heard herself say.

  “You pay him too little heed, Ester, or I’m a mouse.”

  Ida’s good family name made her Ester’s social equal, but she generally adopted the role of Ester’s shadow, both assistant and adviser on matters of dress or conduct. Swept by inner turmoil, Ester could not suppress the thought that, in truth, Ida did resemble some small, intense rodent. As Ester parted her lips to urge her friend to find some sleep, Ida hushed her with a raised finger.

  Ida cocked her head. Listen!

  Then her eyes grew round, and she whispered, “She’s coming!”

  A page stepped into the room, a youth dressed in a flowing yellow tabard—a well-woven overgarment—and carrying a silver candleholder. Shadows danced across his features as he gave the two young ladies a sympathetic glance.

  Ester’s heart beat fast. There was no time to get ready!

  There was an artful protocol to such moments. Furniture had to be squared against the wall, excess wax pinched from candles, the chamber pot hidden behind curtains. Ester had barely time to make these improvements and smooth her father’s bedding, with Ida’s help. She shook out the folds of her gown to straighten them, and then, with no further warning, a shadow fell across the room.

  Ester and Ida knelt.

  With a rustle of garments and the gentle kissing sound of leather slippers on the stone floor, a figure scented with rose water swept into the room. This personage remained unmoving as she observed her two youthful ladies-in-waiting and, Ester sensed, took in the uneven whisper of Bernard’s breathing.

  “Ester, arise,” said a woman’s voice, perhaps inadvertently ignoring Ida.

  Ester did as she was told, and stood in the candlelit presence of Queen Eleanor, mother to King Richard and Prince John.

  The gray-haired queen was clad in a long-sleeved cote—a sweeping, flowing garment—dyed in rare vermilion. A few minutes of bright sun would begin to fade such a rich color, and it was possible to observe, even by candlelight, the margins of the sleeves, where usage and light had done some harm.

  The queen stepped to the bedside of the dying man.

  Ester was too overcome with feeling to make a sound.

  “God’s teeth,” said the queen, her voice taut with emotion.

  Ester made the sign of the holy cross.

  The queen continued, “I’d gut the horse that did this with my own hand.”

  Eleanor of Aquitaine had journeyed on Crusade some fifty years earlier, beside her first husband, Louis, the king of France. She had headed a throng of one hundred of her ladies-in-waiting. The pope of those days, Eugenius III, had been furious, and had forbidden women on Crusade
ever since, even though he had at one time admired the young Eleanor, and had given her a special token of divine favor.

  The queen kept this holy relic in a silver reliquary, locked and out of sight. It was an object too wonderful for ordinary daylight.

  Queen Eleanor spoke to the comatose scholar in a voice heavy with sorrow. “I fear you will not survive this, good Bernard.”

  “My lady queen,” Ester heard herself interject, “I trust he will.”

  “How, dear Ester?” prompted the queen.

  The mother of King Richard spoke a blend of fighting-man’s Frankish and courtly high speech. Ester had never known Queen Eleanor to speak English. In old age she had the beauty of wood or polished stone, her eyes the color of sun on fertile soil, brown laced with gold. Her glance, as the songs told, quickened the hearts of heroes, and silenced fools.

  Ester was startled at herself for daring to exchange opinions with the queen. A young woman of Ester’s station was intended to listen carefully and make of conversation a sort of chanson—an artful song, filled with references to wild roses and the courtship of swans.

  Perhaps, then, there was a touch of hard metal to the queen’s voice when she insisted, “Ester, what can we do to save the life of my old friend?”

  9

  SIR EDMUND.

  Edmund rolled the name again in his mouth.

  His new condition made his arms and legs feel foreign. He felt newly assembled, like a figure of dough rolled out by a baker, ready for the oven. He savored the daydream of telling Elviva how he had knelt and heard the prince mint a new knight as certainly as a hammer turns a bit of silver into a coin.

  “Do not permit yourselves to go to Prince John’s feast tonight,” Father Catald was saying, pouring them each a cup of spiced wine.

  “We were invited to a banquet,” retorted Hubert, “along with Sir Nigel and Sir Rannulf, and we would show no disrespect to the king’s brother.” He added, a little wistfully, “I would so much enjoy a feast.”

  Father Catald raised his eyebrows and put a finger to his lips.

  Heavy steps plodded past in the rain, accompanied by the rap-rap-rap of a spear carried like a walking staff. The watchman’s voice lifted in a singsong, “Well and all well,” ready for a long night of duty.

  Edmund sipped wine and considered his fortunes. The two freshly minted knights had celebrated holy mass in the circular sanctuary of Temple Church. It was fitting and traditional for new knights to offer thanksgiving to Heaven, and Edmund’s prayers had been heartfelt.

  Sir Nigel had found the church with little trouble, but could not participate in devotions, being drunk. He slept now like an effigy in the shadowy confines of the church, watched over by his friend Rannulf.

  Their prayers complete, the two new knights sat in the priest’s chambers, just across the courtyard from the church. It was dark outside. No one in London could guess their whereabouts, Edmund reckoned. They had donned travelers’ hooded mantles and taken separate, roundabout routes, at Catald’s bidding, through the byways of London, before arriving at the sanctuary. Now a gentle rain murmured across the sandstone windowsill.

  The priest slipped to the window, and listened. Then he shut each iron-framed wooden shutter, and fastened it with a latch. “Every wood pigeon is a spy for the prince,” he explained with a relieved smile. “And every rat a cutthroat.”

  Edmund kept quiet, trying to judge Catald’s character.

  It was true that he liked the pink-cheeked little priest, and enjoyed his London English, laced with Latin and Norman Frankish. But Edmund had been unlucky—or unwise—in his judgment of both master and servant in recent years. He had served as apprentice to a good-hearted counterfeiter in Nottingham, and on the voyage home found himself unwitting master to a talented thief. He admitted to himself that he no longer had any trust in his ability to assess men and determine their motives.

  “Please realize, Father Catald,” Hubert was saying, indicating the earth-brown bread and flinty cheese before them on the table, “we are all very hungry.” This was simple—even monkish—fare, although the wine, flavored with cardamom and colored with turnsole blossoms, was warming to the soul. “It’s been many long months,” added Hubert, “since Edmund here enjoyed anything like real food.”

  “You both would relish the prince’s farced pheasant, that much is beyond question,” said Father Catald, pouring them each more mulled wine, “and such savories as newborn piglets. And you’d welcome further servings of the excellent venison he poaches from his brother’s forests.”

  “It’s true, then,” said Hubert thoughtfully, “that Prince John usurps Richard’s properties.”

  “Much as the stoat,” said the little cleric, “unsettles the rabbit hutch.”

  Edmund spoke at last. “Forgive me a blunt question, Father, but why should we trust your judgment?” It was hard to frame such a query to a man of God, and Edmund offered a smile of apology.

  But at the same time he kept his gaze steady.

  “As Master of the Temple I am chosen by my fellow Templars,” said Catald, “and these men would not name a fool to maintain such a holy place. Besides, I serve here with the personal blessing of the king.” The Templars were a religious order of fighters who took vows of chastity and devotion to Heaven. Their efforts in the Holy Land had included providing nourishment for King Richard’s Crusaders, and Edmund could recall no shameful act ever committed by a Templar.

  “You are loyal to Richard,” offered Edmund.

  “As you must be,” said Father Catald, “second, of course, to your loyalty to God. At the same time, I am aware that neither of Queen Eleanor’s sons are likely candidates for sainthood.”

  “We must return to Rome,” Edmund said. “We owe it to King Richard and his envoy there.”

  “I pledged my word,” said Hubert, “to the Lady Galena.”

  Galena and her father Sir Maurice relied on Hubert and his friends to return to strife-torn Rome with news regarding the state of London politics. Furthermore, Hubert had personal, emotional ties to Galena that required his journeying back by any means.

  The priest gave a nod of understanding, but said nothing further.

  “Why should we offend the prince,” asked Hubert, “even if we do fail to trust him?”

  “Tonight,” responded Father Catald, “unless I mistake the prince badly, he will seek your vows of fealty.” Of feaute. “You will become Prince John’s creatures, or he will make you suffer.”

  A promise of fealty, Edmund knew, made a man the vassal of his lord. A lord’s creature was even further indebted, although such men were often made wealthy. Edmund and Hubert had already seen the power of court intrigue on their companion from Italy, Luke de Warrene. That smooth-talking knight had been sent by Sir Maurice, distinguished banneret and Richard Lionheart’s envoy in Rome, to discover how matters stood in London. Sir Luke had vanished into the corridors of the city, bought off, Nigel had suggested, by Prince John.

  “Surely Prince John will cause us no injury,” said Edmund, with a weak laugh.

  “He will roast you over hardwood coals,” said the priest. “Especially you, Sir Edmund. The prince no doubt believes that old rumor—that you know the location of some hidden silver.”

  “My former master was a kind but dishonest man,” said Edmund, sorrow in his voice. “And he paid for his crimes with his life. I know of no hidden treasure.”

  “Besides, our worthy prince is jealous,” said the priest. “Men love Richard for his courage—and dislike John for his avarice.”

  “We can flee London,” said Hubert, in the bright way he might have said, “We can buy a goat.”

  Edmund gave his friend a patient glance. “Your father is a wool merchant, with a pantry crowded with servants.”

  “A few,” admitted Hubert.

  “I have no more silver than a scarecrow.” Even his war hammer, Edmund reflected, had been lost in a shipwreck off the shore of Italy.

  “We could make ou
r way home,” said Hubert. “My father would be glad to see every one of us—although one look at Rannulf would make him uneasy. Unless some murrain has stricken the sheepfolds, he can afford to send us to Rome and pay for Edmund’s armor at the same time.”

  Knighthood had already given Hubert a new manner. He had always been quick with a smile, and just as quick with a sword. Now Hubert was demonstrating that he was a man of formidable plans, and the means to carry them out.

  And Hubert’s suggestion ignited Edmund’s hopes. The insistent dream of seeing Elviva again, the young woman with whom he’d shared hopes for a future, had been too long nurtured in his heart. And Maud, his master’s widow—he’d be able to see both of them, and show them that he’d survived battle, and thrived.

  And the winding, homely streets of Nottingham—he’d be able to walk the muddy lanes and see the tavern louts and the street-pigs. He wanted to go home.

  “You’d ride with manhunters trailing you every step of the way,” cautioned the priest.

  Hubert leaned forward, and continued intently, “Please find Edmund a sword—or a war hammer, if it is in your power.”

  “And you’ll need mounts, and enough coin to pay for your bread and ale,” said the priest with an air of mock-exasperation.

  “Yes,” agreed Hubert, “we’ll need all of that.”

  Father Catald’s words were solemn but his eyes merry as he added, “Do I look like a man of miracles?”

  10

  THE EARLY MORNING WAS COLD.

  The four knights rode north. The road was bright with the previous night’s rain. A holy man leaned on his staff and raised a shaky gesture of blessing. Such wandering souls were poor and sometimes so devout that they spoke only to pray.

  Edmund searched in the new leather purse and selected a silver penny, stamped with the likeness of old King Henry—Father Catald had been generous. Edmund asked, the holy man, “Have any men-at-arms passed this way?”