Chapters (76)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- PROLOGUE
- PART I
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- PART II
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- PART III
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- INTERLUDE
- PART IV
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- INTERLUDE
- PART V
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- PART VI
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- INTERLUDE
- PART VII
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- PART VIII
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Newsletter Sign-up
“There’s no earthly reason you should have killed Saladin’s messenger,” William said it aloud, “that he knows of.”
Richard relaxed, the showman gone. “Exactly. I hope that empty mystery drives him mad.”
THE DWINDLING HOURS BROUGHT a camp quiet but for horses and wind. A gentle hour, lit by milky white ribbons across the sky, when a man could fall asleep without fear. If he ignored the ocean, William could almost convince himself he was at home in Derby, lazily watching the stars with his brothers. The same sky he stared up upon now looked impossibly down on England, too, and William could only be envious.
The war council’s members had long left to feel more important in the company of their subordinates. But William was still awake, mind racing with a thousand possibilities of what the next days had in store. The enemy knew about Richard’s use of body doubles, and there was no way to calculate what that meant. Not that it mattered. All William could do was sit and wait for Richard to make another unpredictable decision.
Days such as this left a sour taste in his mouth. The king could be exceedingly kind and competent when he chose to, but he had an equal capacity for mania. Yet in each of Richard’s rants, there was always a nugget of startling clarity. Whether it was all calculated or not, William could never tell.
The king threw himself at the floor, fussing with his blanket. “We should send a messenger back to the city, with the body,” he said off-handedly, as if they had already been in mid-conversation. “You’re in the crown tomorrow? Send that earl, Derby. He’s a tiring one, no?”
Ferrers deserved many wretched things in this life, and worse in whatever came after, but he did not deserve this. Sending the earl to the city with the dead messenger was a certain death sentence. “A bit obvious, that?” William said mildly. “I thought you’d let Saladin stew and wonder for a couple days.”
“Hm?” Richard seemed to have already forgotten his own order. “Oh, yes, I suppose that’s fine. And on second thought, I’ll stay in the crown myself tomorrow.”
The king looked up, where the wisps of smoke from the tent’s brazier curled through an opening to mingle with stars above. William, on the other hand, found himself staring down at the dark spot below where the messenger’s blood had fed the dirt. Within moments Richard was asleep, disappearing from the world without a care.