Free The Dragon Throne by Michael Cadnum Page B

said the prince. “He learned foul fighting from that murderer Rannulf.”
    â€œMy lord prince,” said the Chartrian, both compliant and mystified, setting aside the pear as a prize. “It was all done as Heaven desired.”
    â€œNo, I believe that those four knights are dangerous,” the prince allowed himself to say. “They fight like felons—and laugh in their prayers. I was mistaken to elevate the two squires to knighthood, and now I would obliterate my error.”
    â€œI have no reason to show them mercy,” said the Chartrian. “But I am reconciled to God’s will.”
    That was well said enough, thought Prince John with little pleasure. “I would be happy, and generous in my joy,” the prince continued with a trace of impatience, “if the four knights did not reach Rome.”
    â€œMy lord prince, I would please you,” said the big knight. “But I would obey more easily if I fully knew your desire.”
    The prince saw that the knight was cunning enough to need explicit orders. John leaned close, putting his lips by the big man’s ear. “Travel with as many men as you need.”
    Sir Jean nodded, too excited to speak.
    â€œEmploy a well-mounted army,” continued the prince, sitting back but continuing to speak in a low voice. “That is what you’ll require, to kill these men.”
    â€œMy lord prince,” began the knight, as eager to bargain as any housewife, “I look forward to my reward for this service to you.”
    Only a Chartrian would put the matter so coarsely, thought the prince. Money was as important to a knight as to any man, but what a knight of real ambition sought was to be promoted to the ranks of the milites de familia regis —knights of the royal household.
    â€œI am sending the four knights and their lady charge by way of the Alps,” the prince said. “Seagoing ships are few, and the mountain route can be quicker for capable travelers. See that they lose their lives in some wasteland, where no one will associate our person with the bloodshed—and not on English soil.”
    Besides, thought the prince, if Sir Jean failed, some alpine brigand might well finish the job. Or perhaps a tumble of mountain boulders, or a killing frost. The route through the alpine pass was tended by a brave band of monks founded by Bernard of Aosta. Many travelers died despite their help.
    â€œMy father was Sir Beaumont le Brun, my lord prince,” the Chartrian replied in response, “and his father kept a sword that had belonged to King Pepin le Breve.”
    â€œYou have a family of treasured name,” said the prince, regretting that such bargaining could not be left to some steward’s clerk. “Bring me back the severed sword hands of the four offending knights, and you’ll hold a high station in my court.”
    If my brother Richard does not return from his Crusade.
    Sir Jean of Chartres drew his sword. He knelt before the prince, kissing the hilt of the weapon as a man would kiss the holy cross.
    Prince John lifted a finger. “But see,” added the prince, “that the young lady Ester completes her pilgrimage to Rome.”
    It would not be wise to offend Heaven.

21
    THE CHANNEL WATERS WERE A STRANGE, liverish color, dark and troubled. Ester told herself she did not mind.
    â€œWhy did our Lord God,” asked Nigel, “bother making so much water? The oceans are too full of it.”
    There was a good deal of sea, it was true, and yet Ester began the journey convinced that their pilgrimage was protected by divine will, and that no harm could touch them.
    Their travel would take them across the Channel, and then down a landlocked route, through the grape-growing estates of minor barons, toward the life-threatening barrier of the Alps. But Ester was not afraid, she reminded herself. With Ida at her side, in the company of her companion knights, the young