The Saracen: The Holy War, Robert Shea [best beach reads TXT] 📗

above the walls. Even during his brief glimpse of the city upon his arrival late the night before, he had seen many great houses.

He looked at the tall, gaunt king, whose round eyes stared thoughtfully off into the cloudy sky.

It was lucky for Simon—if it were proper to think of a man's death as lucky—that the funeral of Count Raymond of Provence, father of Louis's Queen Marguerite, had brought the king here, so close to Italy. Otherwise Simon might still be traveling northward with the pope's letter. When he landed at Aigues-Mortes he had found the whole port abuzz with the news of Count Raymond's death and of the coming of the French royal family to bury him in state and settle the future of the county of Provence.

A traveler from a foreign land looking at Louis would never imagine that he was a king, Simon thought. A plain brown felt cap covered Louis's thinning gray hair, draping down one side of his head. His robe and a cloak of thin, cheap wool, dyed black, were not warm enough for this chill September morning. Perhaps, Simon thought, the penitential shirt of woven horsehair he wore next to his skin warmed Louis even as it discomforted him. He carried no weapon at his dull leather belt, only the parchment scroll, the pope's letter, which Simon had given him the night before. Louis's shoes were of the same sort of leather as his belt, and the points of their toes were far too short to be fashionable.

Simon felt overdressed beside the king, and resolved that from now on he would try to dress more plainly.

With his long fingers, King Louis tapped the scroll tucked into[151] his belt. "He afflicts me sorely, this Jacques Pantaleone, this Pope Urban."

"The pope afflicts you, Sire?" Simon was surprised to see the king unhappy about the pope's message to him. He had expected Louis to be overjoyed at getting permission to deal with the Tartars.

A sudden worry struck him. What if the king and the pope could not agree? All his work would have been for nothing—over a year of his life, all the fighting and dying—to say nothing of the personal expense of paying forty Venetian crossbowmen for over a year and maintaining six knights—

Now five, a grief-laden thought reminded him.

Yes, and what about Alain? Was his death to be for nothing?

Worst of all, the accomplishment he had hoped would put him on the road to redeeming his family's honor would be no accomplishment at all. The year wasted, lives wasted, the shadow of treason still lying upon his name and title.

What joy he had felt only a little earlier this morning, knowing he would accompany King Louis on his morning walk after Mass. Now his eager anticipation seemed like so much foolishness.

But, of all the men in the world, this is the one I would never want to disappoint.

Whatever Louis decided must be right. But, dear God, let him not decide to cast away the alliance.

Louis said, "Urban grants the thing I want most in the world, but only if I agree to that which I desire least. And I do not want to give in to him."

Oh, God! The sky seemed to darken.

"What does he ask you to do, Sire?"

Louis sighed, a deep, tremulous expulsion of breath. "He asks that the might of France should be diverted into a squabble among petty princes in Italy, when Jerusalem is at stake!"

It seems more than a squabble when you are in the thick of it, thought Simon, remembering the night the Filippeschi had attacked the Monaldeschi palace.

"I cannot wait any longer to begin preparing for a crusade," Louis said. "I want to return to Outremer in six years, in 1270. That may seem to you a long time away, but for such a great undertaking as this it is barely enough. It took me four years to get ready for the last crusade, to gather the men and supplies, and it will be harder this time."

"Why 1270, Sire?" said Simon.

Louis's head drooped and his eyes fell. "To win my freedom I[152] promised Baibars, the Mameluke leader who is now Sultan of Cairo, that I would not wage war on Islam for twenty years."

"An oath to an unbeliever—" said Simon.

"My royal word!" said Louis fiercely. "And besides that, France needed twenty years to recover from the loss of thousands of men, men I lost, to raise up a new generation of knights like yourself to take the cross again."

Many times during his boyhood years of living with the royal family, Simon had observed that the queen, or the king's brothers or his sons would burst out in exasperation over Louis's insistence on adherence to some principle, regardless of inconvenience or discomfort. In Simon's eyes this had always meant that the king was a better Christian than the other members of his family. Now, seeing all his work and his hopes possibly ruined by the king's refusal to come to the pope's aid against the Ghibellini, Simon was disturbed to feel a similar anger at Louis arise within him.

Simon stared at the man he loved so well, and saw that even though the king was talking of war, his thin, pale face was raised to heaven in an exalted, almost angelic look.

"But only the pope can proclaim a crusade," Louis said. "Unless he does so, I cannot raise an army. And if we attack the Saracens in Egypt while the Tartars strike through Syria, we will be invincible. But without the pope's permission I cannot make a pact with the Tartars. In this letter he gives that permission, but he makes it conditional on my involving France in his struggle with Manfred von Hohenstaufen."

Simon was in despair. Louis would refuse, and the alliance would go a-glimmering.

Louis put a hand on Simon's shoulder. "Be patient awhile, Simon. My queen and my brother, Count Charles, will join us at breakfast. We will talk together of all this."

The weight of Louis's hand sent a warmth all through him. But how could the king expect him to be patient when he had so much to lose?

"Count Charles meets with you this morning?" Simon asked. He had known that Charles d'Anjou was in Avignon, but thought it his duty to carry the pope's letter straight to the king, without first taking the time to seek out his mentor, the king's brother.

"Yes," sighed Louis, "we meet for another petty squabble. My queen was the only heir of her father, the Count of Provence, and now the county is ours to dispose of. Marguerite wants to keep it in my immediate family, giving it to our son Tristan. But Charles wants it for himself. He already holds Anjou, Aquitaine, and Arles.[153] Add Provence to that, and he would have a domain stretching from the Pyrenees to Italy. Whatever I decide, I will offend either my brother or my wife." He shook his head. "That is why it makes me so happy to talk to you, Simon. Young men understand what is really important so much better than their elders."

"Sire, I would do anything you asked of me." On a sudden impulse, Simon fell to his knees on the sand and seized Louis's bony hand and kissed it.

Louis gripped his arms and raised him. Simon felt surprising strength in Louis's hands.

"Do not kneel to me, Simon," said the king, and Simon saw that his eyes were brimming with tears. "But it would mean so much to me if you, of all men, would take the cross."

If I, of all men—

Simon understood. Louis was thinking of Amalric de Gobignon, whose treachery fourteen years earlier had been the final blow to Louis's crusade into Egypt. The king's life had been shadowed ever since, Simon knew, by the memory of an entire army lost in the sands by the Nile and by his failure to win Jerusalem.

And no matter that I am not really the son of Amalric. If I inherited his title, his lands, and his power, I must inherit his shame too. And atone for it.

Louis was still holding Simon's arms. The light blue eyes froze him with their stare.

"I have sworn to liberate Jerusalem. I will do it, or I will die. If I cannot have the help of the Tartars, I will still go. If every knight and man-at-arms in Christendom refused to go with me—if I had to go alone—I would still go."

God help me, you will never have to go alone as long as I live. If you go on crusade, I will go too.

But there must be a Tartar alliance. There must!

"Let us walk back over to the city and to breakfast, Simon," said Louis. "Marguerite and Charles will be waiting for us."

As they walked to the bridge of Avignon, preceded and followed at a discreet distance by the king's guards in blue and silver tunics, Simon felt himself torn. He wanted to please King Louis, and he wanted to redeem the name of his house. But must he live out his whole life expiating the crimes of Amalric de Gobignon, who was not even his real father?

Roland and Nicolette laid a heavy burden on me when they brought me into the world, he thought bitterly.

Again he thought of Sophia. If he could persuade her to come[154] and dwell with him at Gobignon, he could forget the shame of Amalric and live simply and in peace, a happy man.

Since high matters of state were to be discussed here, over breakfast in the private dining room of the palace of the bishop of Avignon, the servants had been dismissed. King Louis, Queen Marguerite, Prince Tristan, Count Charles, and Simon were alone together. The large round table was piled high—a whole roast duck, a dozen boiled eels, blocks of hard cheese, a pyramid of hard-boiled eggs, bowls of pickled fruits, stacked loaves of fine white bread, trays of cheese pastries, and flagons of wine.

Simon sliced the eels and put oval white slices on each person's trencher, while Prince Tristan carved and distributed the duck. As they did so, King Louis read aloud the pope's letter granting him permission to conduct a crusade jointly with the Tartars in return for French help against the Ghibellini.

"Your next crusade will make me a widow," Queen Marguerite said, her round face white and her fists clenched on the table. "As your last did to so many other women."

Tristan, a sturdy, ruddy-faced youth a few years younger than Simon, went around the table pouring red Rhone valley wine into everyone's cup but his father's. Louis poured his own wine from another pitcher, and Simon saw that it was a pale pink. It must be more water than wine.

Louis's long, thin fingers, carrying a slice of eel to his mouth as Marguerite spoke, stopped in midair, and he slowly put the meat back on his trencher. But he said nothing.

"Do not speak so, madame," said Charles as he used a long thumbnail darkened by the dirt under it to break and peel the shell from a hard-boiled egg. "It brings ill luck." Simon heard the venomous undertone in his voice.

Even though this was the first time they had seen each other since Charles sent Simon to Italy to guard the Tartars, the Count of Anjou had hardly spoken to Simon this morning. Hurt, Simon wondered how he had offended Charles.

Marguerite, tall and stout, her head wrapped in a linen coif held in place with a net of pearls, stood with a sudden, graceless lunge that knocked her chair over. Tristan, blushing, went to pick it up, and she caught his hand.

"What need of ill luck when I have a husband bent on destroying himself, and he has a brother who is only too happy to help him do it?" She turned away from the table, pulling Tristan after her. "I take with me this boy, lest he spoil your pleasant dreams of crusading[155] by reminding you of how and where he was born." With long, angry strides she was at the door. Tristan stepped in front of his mother to open the door for her.

"Good morning to you, madame," said Louis softly, still looking down at the slices of boiled eel that lay before him. The door slammed behind the queen and her son.

"What did she mean by that?" Charles said, sounding quite unconcerned by the queen's outburst.

"Do you not remember, brother?" said Louis. "Marguerite gave birth to Tristan alone in Egypt, while you and I were prisoners of the Mamelukes. She has never forgotten how terrified she was."

To mask his embarrassment, Simon took a big swallow of the red wine. It was thick and tart, and burned in his chest as it went down. He never enjoyed wine this early in the day. He