A King's Ransom

  The storm that hit hours later was not as savage as the one that had stranded them on La Croma, but it proved to be longer-lasting. For three days, the Sea-Serpent was battered by the waves and wind, pelted with sleet. The men slept little, ate less, gulped syrup of ginger to calm their heaving stomachs, and prayed—not just to the saints they’d drawn, but to every saint they could remember. The wind was cold and fierce and Spyro, the helmsman, told them it was a bora, which swept down from the inland mountains and wreaked havoc during the winter months. Shivering in their wet clothes, Richard’s knights crouched miserably in the tent and longed for Zadar the way they’d been told infidels yearned for Mecca.

  They’d been driven far out to sea by the bora, had not seen land for two days. When Richard demanded to know how much farther to Zadar, Georgios reluctantly admitted that the port was lost, far behind them. Unnerved by the English king’s volcanic outburst, which put him in mind of Sicily’s Mountain of Fire, he assured Richard that there was another Hungarian port at Pula and they could put in there once the winds decreased and Spyro could use his navigational aid, a magnetized needle stuck in a sliver of cork that, when floated in a bucket of water, always pointed north. Sailors relied upon the stars and landmarks to chart their course, he reminded Richard, neither of which were now available to Spyro. As soon as the weather cleared, they would land at Pula or they could sail back to Zadar if that was the king’s wish. He sounded very matter-of-fact and confident, but he had no answer when Richard asked what would happen if the storm did not slacken soon.

  On the third day, they finally glimpsed land, only it was on the larboard side of the galley. As they realized they were gazing at the Italian coast, the men were shocked that they’d been swept so far off course. That distant shoreline soon disappeared and once more they could see nothing but sea and sky. Georgios promised again that they would head for a Hungarian port after they escaped the bora’s accursed clutches. He made the wind sound like a malevolent entity, capable of malice, and few of Richard’s men would argue with him at that point.

  When the storm was finally over, the men on the Sea-Serpent, passengers and crew alike, were too exhausted to rejoice; the most they could muster was numbed relief. Spyro consulted the sailing needle and adjusted the ship’s course. But they did not have long to savor their reprieve, for a few hours later, calamity struck. The first indication Richard had that something had gone very wrong was a sudden shout, followed by a burst of profanity; even though he spoke no Greek, there was no mistaking the tone. Hastening out on deck, he found the pirates clustered around the tiller, all talking at once in an obvious panic.

  “Petros! What has happened?”

  The young sailor usually thrived on danger and chaos. Now, though, he just looked scared. “God help us, lord, for we’ve lost the rudder! It is not responding to the tiller!”

  Petros went on to say that it must have been damaged by the constant pounding of the waves, or else it had become entangled in seaweed or a fishing net. Richard was no longer listening, for an alarming image was flashing before his eyes—a crippled Saracen ship, floundering helplessly after some of his sailors had dived into the water and tied ropes around its rudder, disabling it so their galleys could attack. Without its rudder, a ship was unable to steer, at the mercy of the waves and wind.

  FOR ANOTHER DAY, the Sea-Serpent was carried along by the current, the men aboard praying, for there was not much else they could do. But the next morning Spyro woke them by yelling for Georgios, and Petros told them that there was land ahead, explaining that the changing color of the sea meant a river estuary. They clung to the gunwale, staring intently at the horizon, cheering when they heard the distant echoes of the surf. At last the shoreline came into view, greenish grey under an overcast, dull sky. The pirates were manning the oars again. As soon as they reached the shallows, they plunged into the water to beach the galley. The ground was marshy and they sank into it almost to the tops of their boots, but even a quagmire seemed like Eden to them after their ordeal on the Sea-Serpent.

  The pirates were positioning the anchors to keep the galley from being caught in the next high tide and cursing among themselves as they confirmed that the rudder had indeed broken off. The wind had a bite and the men began to shiver. A silence fell as they looked around at the most barren, bleak landscape any had ever seen. No trees. No vegetation, just salty marsh grass. No sounds but the surging of the surf, not even the cries of seabirds. No signs of life.

  Richard spoke for them all when he said at last, “Where in God’s holy name are we?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  DECEMBER 1192

  Istrian Coast

  They’d had to trudge several miles inland to find solid ground and fuel. By then, it was dark and once they got several fires going, the men rolled into their blankets and slept, too exhausted for hunger. The next morning, they were heartened by fleeting glimpses of the sun, the first time in days that the sky had not been smothered in storm clouds. After consulting with the Sea-Serpent’s helmsman and studying their best map, Richard sent several men in search of civilization, and then they settled down to wait.

  Richard was seated cross-legged on the ground, staring intently at the map as if it would provide the answers he needed if only he studied it long enough. He glanced up briefly as Warin and Morgan joined him, then resumed his scrutiny of the map. Warin leaned closer to see. “Are you sure Spyro is right about where we are, my lord?”

  Richard’s shoulders twitched in a shrug. “He claims his sailing needle always points to the north, and so he concluded we’ve come ashore somewhere between Venice and Aquileia.”

  They both peered over his shoulder at the map. They already knew the route they would be taking—east toward Hungary. Assuming they could find horses to buy. Assuming they did not run into any enemy patrols, for they were in hostile territory now. Unlike Ragusa, the writ of the Holy Roman Emperor ran here. To keep from dwelling on these troubling thoughts, Morgan asked, “Do you know what the pirates intend, sire?”

  “Petros says they will replace the rudder and patch up the Sea-Serpent as best they can, then hug the coast to Venice, where they’ll get her recaulked and repair the sails. They are not willing to brave the winter storms by taking her out into the open sea, so they’ll likely pass the next few months whoring and drinking in some safe harbor port.” Richard gave them a quick smile that never reached his eyes. “So if any of you want to turn pirate, I’ll understand.”

  “The whoring and drinking sound tempting, I admit,” Morgan agreed, striving to match his cousin’s bantering tone. “But I’d sooner take holy vows ere I set foot on shipboard again.”

  Warin could never resist a game of one-upmanship and started to say he’d drink goat’s piss ere he’d sail again, but he’d lost his audience. Richard was getting to his feet as Petros and Georgios approached.

  Petros kept his eyes averted and his head down, putting Richard on the alert. “Lord . . . Georgios thinks you ought to pay more than the two hundred marks. He says he did not expect that both of his ships would be damaged on this voyage.”

  “Well, I did not expect to be set ashore in a Godforsaken bog,” Richard countered coolly. “Does this look like Zadar to him?”

  When Petros translated the English king’s reply, the pirate chieftain scowled. He started to argue, but Richard’s expression was unyielding and, instead, he turned on his heel and stalked off. With an apologetic glance over his shoulder, Petros followed.

  Once they were out of earshot, Richard confided, “I do not really blame him for this,” waving his arm to take in their desolate surroundings. “How many pirates can part the seas like Moses, after all? He did the best he could, and I decided at Ragusa that he’d earned extra recompense.”

  Warin and Morgan shared a puzzled look. “Then why did you refuse him, sire?”

  “Because he demanded it of me, Morgan. Had I agreed, he’d have seen it as a sign of weakness. Now when he does get it, he’ll apprecia
te it all the more.”

  Morgan nodded, amused that Richard sounded somewhat impatient, as if he were belaboring the obvious. He’d learned that those who had this special gift—the mastery of other men—seldom realized how rare a gift it was. He’d seen it in Richard’s father and brother Geoffrey. For certes, not in his brothers Hal or John. A king who lacked it was a king doomed to failure, like England’s King Stephen, who’d been courageous on the battlefield and charming in the great hall, but whose reign had been known as “the anarchy,” a time “when Christ and his Saints slept.”

  A sudden shout from one of their sentries turned their attention toward the road that wound through the woods toward the west. When these riders were identified as their own, they felt a surge of hope, for they’d not expected their men to return so soon—or mounted.

  Richard had chosen Anselm and Arne for their skills in Latin and German, sending along Guillain de l’Etang and two of the Templars as protection. They were mobbed as soon as they dismounted, pelted with questions about what they’d found and jokes about their horses, none of which was a worthy mount for a knight, much less a king. Richard finally silenced them and signaled for Anselm to speak.

  The chaplain was a young man, well liked by the others, for he was cheerful, good-hearted, and more forgiving of the foibles of mortal men than many priests, too much in awe of Richard to lay heavy penances for royal sins. He looked understandably pleased with the success of their mission, but Richard knew him well enough to detect the unease behind his smile, and he was bracing for the bad even as Anselm delivered the good.

  “There is a village called Latisana not far from here, sire. At first we were at a loss, for their priest did not know enough Latin to converse with me, and all the townspeople we met spoke some sort of Italian dialect. But we eventually found a blacksmith who understood German, and he directed Arne to a man with horses to sell. We bought all he had, even that one,” he said, gesturing toward a wall-eyed, sway-backed gelding. “I thought we could use him for a packhorse. The horse trader told us that we could buy more horses in the town of Görz, east of Latisana.”

  Arne could keep silent no longer, for he’d greatly enjoyed his first stint as translator. “The people were friendly, my lord, once they learned we were pilgrims on our way home from the Holy Land. They have a hodgepodge of languages here, like in Ragusa—Italian and Slavic dialects. But many of them speak German, too, and I’ll be able to interpret for you in Görz, for their lord’s name is a German one—Engelbert.”

  Richard’s eyes flicked from the boy to Anselm. “Tell me about this Lord Engelbert,” he said, already sure he would not like what he was about to hear.

  “He is the Count of Görz, sire, sharing power with his brother, Meinhard. His lord father died last year, so he’s not been ruling all that long. But from what we could glean in Latisana, he seems well regarded by the people. He is a vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor, of course. . . .”

  “And?” Richard prompted, his voice sharp, and Anselm confirmed his suspicions by giving him an unhappy look.

  “He is also the nephew of Conrad of Montferrat, sire,” he said reluctantly, and in the dismayed silence that followed, his words seemed to echo ominously on the chill December air. Conrad, an 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?

  PETROS 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.

  THE CASTLE AT GÖRZ 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. They ask, my lord count, that you issue a safe conduct allowing them to pass through your domains, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for whom they fought.”

  The count’s face could have been carved from the same stones as his castle for all the emotion he showed; they had no idea what he was thinking. “Did you get to see Jerusalem?” he asked after an uncomfortably long pause. When Arne said they had, he nodded, almost imperceptibly. “So you visited the Holy Sepulchre?” Getting another confirmation from Arne, he reached for the silver wine cup at his elbow and took a sip. “And did you stop in Ragusa?”

  Arne gaped at him. “No, lord! We put in for supplies in a town called Pula.” He added hastily that they’d been heading for Trieste, but had been blown off course by the contrary bora winds.

  This was met with another silence, and he glanced imploringly toward his companions. Although they’d been unable to follow the conversation, Anselm and Morgan sensed that it was not going well. Deciding it was time to reveal to the count just how much his cooperation would be worth, the c
haplain reached for his scrip and passed its contents to Arne. The boy squeezed it tightly for luck and then set it on the table with a flourish, thrilled to be able to hold something so valuable, however briefly.

  As it reflected the torchlight, the ring seemed to catch fire, its massive ruby glowing in a setting of beaten gold. “This is a gift from my master, the merchant Hugh,” Arne declared proudly, “to show our appreciation for your goodwill and hospitality, my lord count.”

  The count’s eyes had widened at first sight of the ring. He did not pick it up, though, and instead turned and abruptly dismissed his scribe. Leaning back then in his chair, he regarded them pensively. “Your master’s name is not Hugh,” he said at last. “You serve the English king.”

  Arne gasped, too stunned to respond. But Morgan had a good ear for languages and he’d picked up a little German from the boy during their months together. Recognizing the words “englische” and “könig,” he found it all too easy to interpret the horrified expression on Arne’s face, and he began to laugh loudly. His companions were quick to comprehend and Arne and Anselm hastily forced laughter, too. “Tell the count,” Morgan directed the boy, “that our master will be greatly flattered that he could have been mistaken for a king. But we can assure Count Engelbert that he is a mercer and pilgrim, no more than that.”

  When Engelbert reached for the ring, they held their breaths. He inspected it without haste, running his thumb over the flaming jewel, the intricate gold leaf design done so lovingly by a Pisan goldsmith. And then he slid it back across the table toward them.

  “I cannot accept this. Tell the king of the English that I respect his vow and his struggle to free the Holy Land from the infidel Saracens. But tell him this, too—that he is in grave peril and must leave Görz at once, for I cannot guarantee his safety should word get out of his presence here. The Emperor Heinrich will richly reward any man who delivers your king into his hands.”