The messenger scurried over, his head bobbing up and down as he attempted to bow and walk at the same time. “His Majesty, King Sancho the Strong, has received word of your arrival in Pamplona,” the messenger said hurriedly. “While he regrets he cannot receive the archbishop immediately, he hopes that you will join him at his estate for a late supper.”
Lazare’s stomach sounded noisily at the idea of dining at the king’s table, and he quietly lamented that he hadn’t anticipated the archbishop’s tenacity. Somewhat sourly, he glared at the archbishop’s steward, Bartholo, a thin man with sunken cheeks, who now appeared beside them. “Did you press upon this gentleman the earnestness of the archbishop’s desire to wait right here for the arrival of the king?”
Bartholo nodded, one eyebrow raised. When he spoke, he moved his lips as little as possible. “I did.”
Lazare knew better than to wait for the archbishop’s steward to elaborate. The man was incredibly sparing with his words. During more than a few of the abbot’s endless sermons, Lazare wished that the abbot could take his cues from Bartholo’s reticence. But, in fact, perhaps he had; the last few hours had been the quietest period Lazare had ever spent in the abbot and archbishop’s presence.
The messenger scratched the side of his neck and shuffled his feet, nervous gestures that Lazare immediately read as signifiers of guilty knowledge. “Is there a response you would like me to take back to His Majesty?” the messenger asked.
“No,” Bartholo said, and Lazare raised his hand to forestall the messenger’s departure.
“A moment,” he asked, considering how to resolve this impasse between church and king. He didn’t know the details of any history between the archbishop and King Sancho, but there was clearly some unresolved enmity that was driving each man to pressure the other. The archbishop was going to remain in the cathedral, praying and fasting, until the king of Navarre deigned to present himself; Sancho was pretending to be too busy to see the archbishop, making the Church wait upon his leisure. Lazare had seen this sort of nonsensical behavior compound difficulties between rulers and churchmen. The simplest disagreement could turn into armed conflict over these sorts of slights. Was attempting to mediate this dispute within the bounds of his role as a monk of the Cistercian order, or would doing so reveal his own interests in a way that would draw unwanted attention?
The archbishop needs the support of Navarre, he thought, trying to figure out the priest’s motivation. The army of northern knights the archbishop had assembled wasn’t enough; the kingdoms of Iberia needed to work together. How was this impasse helping the crusade against the Moors?
“What’s going on?”
Lazare turned to greet the Templar commander who had finally succumbed to temptation. Helyssent de Verdelay thought he was taller than he was, and he carried himself with his head back so that he could look down his nose at those with whom he spoke. And when he did speak, his large teeth were prominently displayed.
“A messenger from King Sancho,” Lazare said.
“Where is he?” Helyssent demanded, as if the king of Navarre were nothing more than a truculent manservant.
“Perhaps it might be best if I were to accompany you,” Lazare said to the messenger, ignoring the Templar’s query. Answering it might provoke Helyssent into a diatribe about the arrogance of provincial rulers—a rant Lazare had no desire to suffer through. “I would be more than happy to offer my apologies to the king in person,” he continued. “There is no reason for you to be burdened any further by this delicate conversation.”
The messenger nodded vigorously. “Yes, Father,” he said. “I think that would be best.”
“Please,” Lazare corrected him. “I am a just a lay brother of the Cistercian order. Brother Lazare is fine.”
“You still haven’t told me what is going on,” Helyssent demanded.
Bartholo raised an eyebrow as he glanced at Lazare.
“Very little,” Lazare said with a sigh. “The archbishop is praying, the king is not here, and I wonder if the possibility of a visitor, such as myself, might help bring all of this to a much more expedient resolution.”
Helyssent stared at him for a moment and then looked back at the archbishop and the abbot. “Very well,” he said. “My men and I will be continuing on to Toledo in the morning, with or without the priests. I am not interested in local politics. They have no bearing on our crusade.”
Meaning there are no spoils to be won, Lazare thought, biting his tongue to keep the words from coming out of his mouth. Helyssent narrowed his eyes as if he suspected what was on Lazare’s mind, and his nostrils flared in an imperious sniff. “I am going to the inn,” he announced to Bartholo. “God knows of my love for Him. I do not need to continue prostrating myself.”
Bartholo inclined his head, and Lazare stepped quickly out of the way as the Templar commander shoved open the gate between the choir and the nave. With a final sniff of derision, Helyssent departed.
Lazare was somewhat taken with the idea that the Templars might go on without the rest of the archbishop’s party. He tried not to let his enthusiasm show.
The messenger apologized for not having more suitable transportation from the cathedral, but Lazare dismissed the other man’s concerns with a wave of his hand. It felt good to walk, and the messenger’s pace made him stretch his legs to keep up. Pamplona was not unlike Paris or Carcassonne—a burgeoning city that was not so far from its ramshackle youth that the accretions of growth weren’t readily visible. Around the Cathedral of Saint Mary, the buildings were made from stone and sunbaked brick, and the streets were straight and wide; as Lazare and the messenger moved north, their route traced a path through a maze of crooked alleys and haphazard lanes that made no sense to Lazare. The buildings that crowded the street were newer than the aged stone structures near the cathedral, but they weren’t built as robustly. Some of them leaned slightly, as if they were looming over the street.
And then the architecture changed again. The streets became wide boulevards, lined with walls that marked the edges of villas owned by landowners and Navarrese nobility. Ahead, the street opened into a round plaza; in the center were three fountains surrounded by low hedges. Beyond, Lazare spotted the towers of the castle keep, the residence of the king of Navarre. Soldiers patrolled the plaza, wearing the king’s colors.
The messenger led Lazare toward the castle, and when they neared the main gate, he gestured that Lazare should wait while he spoke with the guard. Lazare idled out of earshot, quietly examining the swords carried by the guards. French blacksmiths were much less inclined to fanciful cross guards and pommels on their swords.
“Come with me,” one of the guards said, waving Lazare over. Lazare nodded and let the man lead him through the gates and into the castle proper. There was the usual bustle about the grounds of the castle yard, and Lazare found his attention straying toward the smithy when he heard the sound of the smith’s hammer ringing against a piece of unfinished steel. Lazare lost track of his escort momentarily and looked about for the man, somewhat confused that he wasn’t being taken to the main keep. When he spied the man once more, he hurried after him.
They went around the main keep, slipping between a barracks and the stables, until they reached a secluded yard, set off by a low wooden wall. The arena had a floor of hard-packed dirt, and it was large enough to exercise several horses or perform martial drills with dozens of men. Four men stood in the center of the arena, and a dozen or so more were arranged along the nearest fence; they were all watching the single horse and rider who were galloping around the circuit of the yard. The rider was the tallest man Lazare had ever seen, made taller by the height of his proud mount. The horse was as gray as a winter sky, and its mane and tail were long and luxurious, combed more often than Lazare attended to his own hair.
“King Sancho,” his escort pointed out in case Lazare was oblivious to the identity of the rider.
Lazare nodded absently as he wandered close to the railing, wher
e he became aware of a swell of noise from the watchers. He couldn’t make out any individual words; they were like the wind moving through trees in the forest. The men in the center of the arena were calling out individual words of praise at least, though Lazare could not fathom what activity of the king’s was eliciting such boisterous approval.
The third time the horse and rider passed, Lazare noted that the king was looking at him. King Sancho had a broad face with wide-spaced eyes and a flat nose. He didn’t appear to be enjoying his ride all that much, and Lazare thought he saw a flicker of curiosity in the king’s gaze as he galloped by. On the fourth pass, the horse came to a complete stop directly in front of Lazare with no sign that the king had given the horse any direction.
Lazare took such mystery as a sign that he should abase himself, and he did so, touching his forehead to the rough wood of the railing. His Castilian wasn’t nearly as good as his langue d’oc, but he stuttered out a few honorifics, focusing his efforts on praising the beautiful horse.
“I wasn’t aware the Cistercians knew much about horses,” Sancho said in langue d’oc.
Lazare kept his head down. “Not as much as the king of Navarre knows of the land beyond the northern mountains,” he said.
“Bah,” Sancho said. “It was my sister’s husband. He couldn’t even bother to learn his own tongue, much less his bride’s native language.” He shook his head. “You have an eye for horses. Are you one of the knights of Calatrava?” he asked.
Lazare looked down at his once-white but now rather dingy robe, momentarily wondering if the king saw something that no one else in the last few years had discerned. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” he said. “I am merely a priest. I pray for God’s mercy; I don’t go to battle in his name. Not like the Order of Calatrava.”
“Why not?” Sancho asked. “They were monks once and then they became knights. The Templars are priests, are they not?”
“They are,” Lazare said. “But they study the arts of war and not the arts of piety and devotion.”
“Can a man not be devoted to God through feats of battle?” Sancho inquired.
“Yes,” Lazare said. “Well, no. It is not…proper devotion to God…” He trailed off as he realized he was not presenting himself very well.
Sancho laughed at his discomfort, and several of the nearby courtiers tittered in kind, echoing the king’s mirth with a vapid hollowness. “Is this how the archbishop means to sway me? By sending a dottering fool of a priest?”
Lazare flushed and raised his head. “I am not the archbishop’s fool,” he snapped, denying the king’s accusation even though the very thought was making his cheeks sting with embarrassment.
“No?” Sancho raised his right eyebrow. “Then who are you, and why have you interrupted my morning ride?”
It was a very good question, and Lazare realized he had mere moments before his efforts pushed the archbishop and the king farther apart. The delay in arranging an audience with the king had nothing to do with the monarch’s busy schedule. Lazare did not know who had offended whom, but it was clear there was an unresolved dispute between the two—one that was probably more about an imagined slight than any real injury. Each man wanted the other to show contrition first. “Your horse is truly magnificent,” he said quickly, focusing his attention on the mount more than the rider. “As is your city and its people. They reflect the love you have for them.”
Sancho’s horse tossed its head and pawed the ground, eager to return to running. The king said nothing, though his gaze remained on Lazare.
“Archbishop Rodrigo is on his knees at the Cathedral of Saint Mary,” Lazare continued, “and gives every sign that he will be there for some time. The abbot of my abbey, Arnaud Amairic of the Cistercian order, prays next to him. It is regrettable, Your Majesty, that neither can step outside that house of God and see the same things that I have seen. Your city. Your people.” Lazare raised his hand gingerly toward the horse who extended its head and blew air on his knuckles. “Your horse.”
Sancho laughed and nodded curtly at the guard standing behind Lazare. “You will join me for a meal when I am finished,” he said, “and we can discuss my city and my people. And whether or not you are a fool.” Without waiting to hear Lazare’s reply—not that any reply was necessary—he tapped his heels lightly against his steed’s sides. The animal tossed its head and trotted off, gathering speed as it returned to its run.
Lazare managed to extract some of the story from the king’s steward while he waited for the king to finish exercising his horse. There was a complicated history between the kingdoms of Navarre, Aragon, Leon, and Castile that went back more than ten years. A treaty with the Almohad caliphate had allowed the kings of Spain to quarrel amongst themselves, and there were some lands that both Castile and Navarre claimed as theirs.
Almost as an afterthought, Lazare mentioned the king’s sister and was rewarded with a name: Berengaria. He mentally chastised himself for not recalling this detail earlier. Berengaria had been married to the king of England, Richard the Lionheart, and he recalled the tension that had swept the Frankish lands during the English king’s unexpected stay at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor. The French king, Philip, had taken it upon himself during Richard’s incarceration to annex some of the lands that had belonged to Berengaria, and by extension, Sancho’s family.
Some time later, Lazare mulled over what he had learned as he waited in an audience room. This sort of internal conflict among Christian rulers was not uncommon, but he sensed there was something more complex about the disputes between the Iberian kings. The steward had intimated that, on occasion, the various kings had allied with the Moors against other Christian rulers. He was starting to wonder how safe it was to insert an army of French crusaders into this complicated history when the door to the chamber was thrown open and King Sancho entered, ducking to clear the doorway. Sancho held a goblet in his hand, and several servants scurried in behind him, bearing trays of food and pitchers of wine. Sancho swaggered over to the balcony and stood beside Lazare, slurping noisily from his goblet. “Has my steward explained everything to your satisfaction?” he asked.
Lazare flushed. He had felt quite clever in how he thought he had managed to get the steward to tell him of recent events. “He has, Your Majesty.”
“Why are you participating in this charade? Not because you hope to save men on the field of battle.” He said the latter matter of factly, and Lazare appreciated his outspoken brusqueness.
“No, Your Majesty,” he admitted. “My Cistercian brothers and I hope to be of assistance to the Order of Calatrava—they are our brothers, after all.” He left off mentioning Amairic’s role in the procession from France to Toledo, deciding that since Sancho had not asked specifically, he would not volunteer any information. “But we are not knights like they,” he said, keeping the conversation focused. “Brother Crespin is a stone mason, for example, and I am knowledgeable in the artifice of steel.”
“Stone and steel, eh?” Sancho drank from his goblet. At Lazare’s elbow, a servant tried to give him a goblet of wine as well, and Lazare hesitated for a second before accepting. The wine was warm and red; it wasn’t sour at all, and he found himself gulping it all too readily. “So they mean to retake Calatrava?” Sancho asked.
“The Templars do,” Lazare said. Which was true.
Sancho nodded, his lips pursed in a grim line. “What was once theirs must be theirs again,” he said.
Lazare nodded. He knew the history of the Order of Calatrava. The citadel at Calatrava had been a Templar stronghold, but they had relinquished it many years ago when they could no longer muster the knights to keep it secure. The king of Castile had offered it to anyone who could defend it and two Cistercian priests—Father Raymond, abbot of the monastery in Fitero, and Father Diego Veláquez—put aside their previous duties and had taken up the sword. Naming their order after the citadel, they had stood fast against Moorish invaders until 1195 when the Almohad army swept across t
he plain of Alarcos. The Templars had been gone long enough from Iberia that their claim to Calatrava was fairly specious, but who was to deny the Templars what they wanted? Especially when getting what they wanted meant driving the Moorish threat out of Iberia?
“Do you know that the Pope sides with the king of Castile in this crusade?” Sancho asked. “His offer of holy redemption for those who fight in God’s name comes with the decree that no Christian may take up arms against another Christian during this conflict.”
“I think that is not an unwise decree regardless of any crusade, Your Majesty,” Lazare said.
“And yet, the lands that Alfonso has taken from me remain his, and the lands that the archbishop and these Templars seek to conquer will become Castilian. What benefit is there for Navarre in this crusade?”
“Before I met Your Majesty, I would have said that the security of all Christians is benefit enough, but I fear I do not know enough of the history between Navarre and Castile and the Moors to make such a claim,” Lazare admitted. “The Pope, in Rome, sees the Almohad caliphate as an enemy that must be destroyed, but Rome is very far away, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Sancho said. “Rome knows little of the history of the peninsula. His proclamations of crusade, along with his threats of interdiction and excommunication, can be as readily abused as they can benefit the kingdoms of Iberia.”
Lazare nodded, thinking of the ongoing struggle between the people of England and King John. At the Cistercian abbey in France, there was little awareness of the complex issues that separated king and subject. How could anyone—especially a spiritual ruler hundreds of miles removed—issue broad proclamations against a perceived enemy and not fail to misread the nuances of the conflict?
“I remember stories, from when I was a child, about Richard the Lionheart and the treaty he made with Saladin,” Lazare said. “He was pilloried for failing to conquer the Holy Land, but he managed to secure assurances that Christians could make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem safely. He thought that was a satisfactory victory.”
Foreworld Saga 01 SideQuest Adventures No. 1 The lion in chains, the beast of Calarrava, the shield maiden Page 14
