“Even so,” Le Chevalier pressed on, “there are more things than a flight of stairs are capable of cracking a skull, even a royal one . . . perhaps, in this case especially, a royal one.”
“Now just one damned minute. Sir Marc.” Roberto di Bolgia came up half out of his chair, his face red and his right hand grasping the wire-wound hilt of a sheathed dagger at his belt.
Sir Ugo chose that moment to arise and say in a loud, firm voice, “Gentlemen, if you please*. You’re behaving less like polished and well-bred noblemen of France and Italy than you are like these savage, dirty, scabby, brawling FitzGeralds, did you know that?
“Your Grace, please to resume your seat and your composure.
“Roberto, sit down. If you try to put that blade into Marc, I’ll be forced to put one of mine own into you.
“Marc, if you don’t or can’t believe that His Grace and Roberto and I had nothing to do with Righ Tamhas’s death, then take your ship of the line and sail back to France, to Sicily, or to hell, for all I care, but please cease your senseless questionings and baitings. Just what is it you’re after this morning, anyway? Will you answer me that?”
When all were once more seated, Le Chevalier looked from beneath his brows at Sir Ugo, grumbling, “It . . . it’s all just happened in too damned convenient a fashion here. I knew that the removal of Roi Tamhas was necessary, and I was willing to go along with letting him ride out there and get his head blown off, for it was truly an honorable death by any standards save your decadent Italian ones. But to coldly murder a king is a something I cannot . . . could not stomach, especially when said king is obstensibly your employer, trusts you, depends upon you. I’m sorry, I had until this morning considered myself to be a man of the modern world, but now I know my true nature: I am just an old-fashioned, honorable Norman knight, who values truth and loyalty to his God-given overlords above all earthly things.
“Had I that right, I would indeed board the Impressionant and set sail for France, for Le Havre, and on this very day. But I cannot, in honor, for I promised my king that I would stay with his ship; that ship still is pledged to the service of Rome and His Eminence D’Este, so remain here I must. However, in light of words spoken this morning here, and in light of what might or might not have been done to speed Roi Tamhas to Heaven. I must respectfully withdraw from the Royal Council of the Kingdom of Munster.”
“Now, by Pontius Pilate’s putrid pecker.” roared Timoteo, “we’ve told you we none of us killed that dim-witted, ever-sodden yokel of a king. Marc! What more do you require of us? Solemn oaths?”
Shrewdly guessing that that was just what would impress the Norman and retain him on the council. Sir Ugo drew the royal sword of state from where it rested before the late king’s empty canopied chair.
“All right. Marc, Righ Tamhas always attested that the pommel of this brand contained a fingerbone of St. Columbia.” Clasping both hands about the oversized pommel, he said slowly, “I, Sir Ugo Mario Vittorio D’Orsini, do solemnly swear upon this holy relic and upon my hope of salvation that I in no way brought about or caused others to bring about the demise of the late Tamhas Fitz-Gerald. Ri of that ilk and Righ of Munster.”
The FitzGeralds all were forced to come to the city by way of the river, due to the blocking of all the landward approaches by the Ard-Righ’s siege lines, which gave each and everyone one of them a good look at the impressive ships, all bristling with cannons, moored out in the channel of the river. Within the city itself, they quickly were made aware that the only troops of any number were those of the Italian and Ifriqan mercenaries and that said mercenaries would favor the elevation of no one of the claimants to the throne save Sir Sean FitzRobert. Therefore, having care for their heads and wishing to get out of the city with them still in place, as well as admitting to each other both publicly and privately that Sean FitzRobert had about as good a claim to the throne and the chieftaincy as any of his peers, they announced after only a week of feasting, drinking, shouting, snarling, insulting, brawling, and bloodshed that their choice for Ri and Righ was Sean FitzRobert, who would be crowned as soon as Tamhas FitzGerald had been buried properly.
Timoteo did not wait for the coronation. While almost everyone else was at the funeral service—sanctified, in the absence of a resident prelate, by a bishop brought in from Chaisil—and the burial, he and Roberto and Sir Ugo thoroughly intimidated, terrified, the royal treasurer and, with that functionary’s trembling assistance, violated the strongroom, removed the Star of Munster. plus a little coined gold and a ring that took il Duce’s fancy, and set Sir Ugo and Roberto on the way to Lagore before Tamhas’s leaden casket was yet in its crypt. Le Chevalier had no part of this, indeed had no knowledge of its contemplation; he had been at the funeral mass and the encryptation of the deceased Righ of Munster, along with Ri and Righ-e\ecl Sean FitzRobert.
Of course, there was an almighty commotion when the royal treasurer was found in the strongroom with his throat cut and the Star of Munster missing from its chest, but Timoteo testily pointed out to Sean FitzRobert and a number of others that it was not and had never been the responsibilty of him and the other mercenaries to provide internal security for the palace or even the town; such duties were and always had been the exclusive provinces of the FitzGerald Guards and the Corcaigh Guards. He added that if the king-to-be and the other FitzGerald cousins did not like the quality of his work, he would be just as happy to load all of his troops aboard ship and sail back to Italy and let them deal with the besiegers themselves. At that point, all accusations of malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonteasance were stilled.
CHAPTER
THE EIGHTH
Her grace Dame Krystal, Duchess of Norfolk, Markgrafin von Velegrad, Countess of Rutland, the Baroness of Strathtyne, was summoned to the presence of His Grace Harold, Archbishop of York, then escorted to him by four of his halberdiers. The way was long, down the stairs from her suites in the north wing of the archepiscopal country palace, along the corridors to the main palace, then up more stairs to the archbishop’s own suite. And at the guarded doors to that suite her ladies were courteously denied entrance, so that Her Grace was already in a fighting mood when the doors closed firmly behind her.
“What the fuck is this horseshit all about, anyway, Hal?” she snarled at the frail man seated across the room, near the bright rays of sunshine pouring through a window.
“We need to talk, Krystal,” said the old man.
“Fine!” she snapped. “Let my ladies in and I’ll talk your goddam ears off.”
He shook his head. “No, Krystal, I have not long that I can remain out here, I must soon return to York. I want to talk to you without the constant titterings and hushed whisperings of that gaggle of noble-bom geese you have collected about you.
“Krystal, there are those of us who are very worried about you. You have changed very drastically in a very short time . . . and not for the better, I must say.
“Krystal, before Bass left for the King’s business in Ireland, he charged me with a certain responsibility, and the time is come for me to discharge it. On the basis of the things you have written in your letters to him, as well as on the basis of things he has heard from others concerning you, he feels that it would be much better for the sake of the boy and for you, too, were little Joe to begin his fosterage early.”
She wrinkled her brow. “Fosterage? What the hell is that?”
“All gentleborn boys go through some years of living with another noble family than their own, sometimes a distant relative, other times not. Bass has secured a fosterage with an old and highly respected noble family: they already have three boys in fosterage and— ‘ The archbishop broke off in shock at the appearance of the woman. She was become livid of face, tiny specks of froth had appeared at the comers of her mouth, and her eyes resembled more those of some wild beast than anything human.
“In a pig’s asshole!” she shrieked, reverting suddenly back to twentieth-century English. “Not you or that fucking cocksucker I’m married to or anybody else is going to take my Joe away from me. do you hear me, you old motherfucker? I am the Duchess of Norfolk, and what I say goes, get that through your thick head! For two fucking cents, I’d call Sir Conn this minute and have him show you what …”