Free A King's Ransom by Sharon Kay Penman Page A

Italian-German lord and adventurer, had been slain by members of the feared Saracen cult known as the Assassins, just days after he’d been chosen as the next King of Jerusalem, and the Bishop of Beauvais and the Duke of Burgundy had sought to put the blame upon Richard, accusing him of procuring Conrad’s murder. Richard had been contemptuous of the charge, insisting that no one who knew him would heed such a slander. But would Conrad’s kinsman believe it?

    P ETROS WAS VERY PLEASED with his bonus. He’d claimed he meant to return to Messina in the spring, but Richard suspected that he was tempted to try his hand at piracy and, after thanking the youth for his services, he said, only half in jest, “Go back to Sicily, lad. You’ll be less likely to get yourself hanged there.”
    He moved then toward Georgios. He’d already paid the pirate chieftain the agreed-upon two hundred marks, but now he flipped a leather pouch into the air. “It is probably less than you want and more than you deserve,” he said dryly, “but it ought to cover the cost of repairing the Sea-Wolf and Sea-Serpent . Share some with Spyro, for he earned every denier with that landing on La Croma.”
    Pride kept Georgios from opening the pouch then and there, but he was reassured by the heft of it, and grinned. “No regrets. I’ll never have to buy another drink again, not with the stories I’ll have to tell about my voyage with the king called Lionheart.”
    He and Petros were soon joined by Spyro and they stood watching as Richard and his men headed east, toward Görz. Arne looked back once and waved, and then the road curved into the trees and they disappeared from view. Spyro started to turn away, muttering under his breath, “God help them.”
    Petros heard and frowned. “He’ll make it,” he insisted. “Fortune smiles on him.”
    Georgios was counting the coins in the pouch, but he glanced up at that. “He’ll need more than luck,” he said, and this time Petros did not argue.

    T HE CASTLE AT G ÖRZ dominated the valley, situated on a hill overlooking the town, the pale winter sky behind it stabbed by snow-crowned alpine peaks. Ringed by thick stone walls and deep ditches, it looked as if it could withstand a siege until Judgment Day, not a reassuring sight to the men standing in the street below. Morgan was the first to speak. “Let’s just hope we do not get to take a tour of its dungeons,” he said, and started up the path, followed by Anselm and Arne.
    They gained admittance without difficulty, but Count Engelbert was holding court in the great hall, hearing petitions and complaints and resolving local disputes, so it was not until late afternoon that they were ushered into his presence. He was seated at a trestle table with a scribe perched on a stool nearby, his writing utensils spread out on a small lap desk. The count was younger than they’d expected, under thirty. If not for the high-quality wool tunic, the fur-trimmed mantle, and the garnet ring on his finger, he’d have attracted no attention, for he was thin of face and stoop-shouldered, his hair a nondescript shade of brown. But his gaze was direct, even piercing, dark eyes revealing both intelligence and the suspicion of strangers that was so common in their world, for most people never strayed far from the places where they were born.
    “So . . . you are pilgrims on your way home from the Holy Land.” Either his command of Latin was limited or he preferred to converse in his own tongue, for he addressed himself to the one German-speaking member of their party. “Who are you?”
    Suddenly nervous, Arne hesitated, but after getting encouraging smiles from Anselm and Morgan, he took a step closer to the table. “We are led by the Flemish lord Baldwin de Bethune, and our master, Hugh, who is a merchant in fine silks back in his homeland.” The words of his rehearsed story were coming more easily now. “We are traveling, too, with some Templar knights.