A King's Ransom - Hardcover

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CHAPTER ONE

NOVEMBER 1192

Off The Coast of Sicily

They were dangerously close to the coast of North Africa, so the ship’s master had warned hi crew to keep a sharp eye out for pirates. When the sailor perched up in the rigging shouted, men instinctively dropped hands to sword hilts, for they were battle- seasoned soldiers, returning home from Outremer after a three-year truce had been made with the Sultan of Egypt, Salah al-Din, known to the crusaders as Saladin. They crowded to the gunwales, but they saw no sails upon the horizon, only the slate-grey sea and a sky mottled with winter clouds.

Finding no sign of pirates, the knights glanced toward the man standing in the prow of the ship. He would always attract more than his share of attention, for he was taller than most men, his hair and beard a striking shade of red-gold. But he was in need of a barber's shears, and the costly wool mantle draped about his shoulders was frayed around the edges, stained with sweat and sea salt. While these weeks at sea had taken their toll, his hollowed cheekbones and pal¬lor testified to his near-fatal bout with quartan fever. He might be almost invin¬cible in hand-to-hand combat, but he'd not been able to stave off the deadly maladies and miasmas that stalked the Holy Land. Twice he'd come close to dying from sickness in Outremer, the fate of their crusade rising and falling with his every labored breath, for all knew they had no chance of prevailing without him-even the French lords, whose loathing for Saladin paled in com¬ parison to the intensity of the hatred they felt for the Lionheart, Richard of England.

The animosity between the kings of England and France had burned hotter than any Saracen flame. Unable to match Richard’s battlefield brilliance or utter fearlessness, Philippe Capet had broken the oath he’d sworn to God and abandoned the crusade after the fall of Acre, returning to France with his honor in tatters and his heart filled with bile. He soon began to conspire with Richard’s younger brother John, hoping to take advantage of the English king’s absence to lay claim to his domains in Normandy. When he learned of their treachery, Richard was desperate to get home, to save his kingdom while he still could. But he’d remained in Outremer, bound by a holy vow that fettered him more tightly than any chains could have done, and after he’d managed to retake the crusader city of Jaffa from a much larger Saracen army, Saladin was ready to discuss peace terms.

Richard won some significant concessions. When he arrived in Outremer, the Kingdom of Jerusalem had consisted of the city of Tyre and a siege camp at Acre. When he departed sixteen months later, the kingdom stretched along the coast from Tyre to Jaffa, Saladin had lost the powerful stronghold of Ascalon, and Christian pilgrims could once again worship in the Holy City. But they had not reclaimed Jerusalem from the Saracens. The most sacred city in Christendom still flew the saffron banners of Saladin, and even before he’d left Outremer, Richard’s enemies were declaring the crusade a failure.

What they did not know was that he, too, believed he had failed. He’d been one of the few to refuse to visit Jerusalem and pray at the Holy Sepulchre, confiding to his queen that he’d not earned that right. He’d promised the new King of Jerusalem, his nephew Henri of Champagne, that he would come back as soon as he’d dealt with the unscrupulous French king and his faithless brother. And on that October night as his ship headed out into the open sea and Acre receded into the distance, he’d whispered a fervent prayer that God would keep Outremer safe until he could return.

The ship’s master was conducting a shouted dialogue with the lookout in the rigging, translating for the English king’s benefit. Turning toward his knights, Richard tersely informed them that a storm was nigh. A muted sound of dismay swept through their ranks, for most men were convinced it took more courage to set foot on the wet, pitching deck of the Holy Rood than it did to ride onto a hundred battlefields. So far they’d been lucky, not having encountered any of the fierce gales that made winter travel so hazardous. But they all had vivid memories of the violent storms that had battered the royal fleet on their way to Outremer, and many of them now hastily made the sign of the cross.

It was said that sailors could predict bad weather in their very bones, and this one’s forecast was not long in proving true. The wind began to rise, catching the ship’s sails and rippling the dark surface of the sea with frothy whitecaps. Black clouds gathered along the horizon, and the day’s light was soon blotted out. The crewmen scrambled to obey their master’s commands, the helmsman hunched over the tiller like a priest at his altar as he struggled to keep the bow headed into the waves. The Bishop of Salisbury and some of the others sought the dubious shelter of their canvas tent. Richard remained on deck, for he always chose to face his foes head-on, and so his Welsh cousin Morgan ap Ranulf and the Flemish lord Baldwin de Bethune stayed loyally by his side, holding tight to the gun- wale as the ship dropped down into troughs and battled its way up again. The ship’s master had told them that their local pilot said there was a safe harbor up the coast at Sciacca, and as they raced the storm, more and more men sought out the clerics on board, asking to be shriven of their sins while there was still time.

By now the wind was howling like a wolf pack on the prowl. They’d reefed the sails, but the Holy Roodcontinued to heel dangerously. When they tried to lower them, one of the downhaul lines started to come loose. With courage that left even Richard dumbfounded, two sailors scrambled up into the rigging and somehow managed to reattach it. With both masts bare, their ship was still pro- pelled by the force of the wind on the hull and rigging, but it no longer skimmed the waves like a bird about to take flight.

Rain had begun to fall, needle-sharp against their skin; within moments, all on deck were drenched. They’d not be able to reach Sciacca, the master told Richard, shouting to be heard above the roaring of the wind, and were heading for a cove a few leagues below the town. The men on the Holy Rood had often faced down Death. Most had thought themselves doomed at Jaffa, caught out- side the city walls by an army seven times the size of theirs. Richard had saved them, though, gaining a victory that should have been impossible. As joyful as they’d been by that miraculous reprieve, they felt even more grateful when their ship at last dropped anchor in a small inlet that offered shelter from the worst of the storm, for they feared death by drowning more than being slain by an enemy’s blade.

They awakened at dawn to a Sicilian sunrise that tinted the sky a pale gold, the occasional cloud spangled in copper and bronze. With the prospect of a fair day for sailing, spirits rose and they made ready to break their fast with bread, cheese, and figs. But it was then that a warning yell came from the rigging, and they soon saw the lateen sails of two large galleys heading toward the cove. The ship’s master, a grizzled Pisan who’d lived most of his life on the deck of a ship, started to curse under his breath. Had they encountered pirate galleys in open water, they’d have had a good chance of outrunning them, but their sails had not yet been hoisted, making them a tempting target for sea rovers, who were now maneuvering to block the entrance to the bay.

Richard had joined the older man at the gunwale, his gaze fixed upon the wind-whipped f lags f lying from the galley mastheads. And then...