1192 (part 2)

still the king dallied in Acre. Shipping grew scarce as vessels were beached for the winter, and I suspect that this was part of his plan, for the coasts of the Middle Sea swarm with pirates, all of whom must be salivating at the thought of the ransom they could collect if they could just capture the richest king in Christendom—he would not be traveling with a fleet of a hundred ships this time. If he dared wait until there were no other vessels at sea, then their spies could not report his departure.

It was not until October 9^th that I received the password. That evening, no banners flew and no bugles sounded as the Lionheart tiptoed out of the Holy Land like a mouse leaving a house full of cats. The ship was another buss, this one having two masts bearing triangular sails, and twin rudders. The king had a small cabin at the stern, so I did not see him actually leaving, but I knew from earlier visions that he wept as Acre slid away into the darkness.

I had forgotten how much I hated sailing. Ships are never still and ever noisy—ropes and planks creaking, waves and sails slapping. The crew claimed that the vessel would carry a thousand men, but I cannot imagine how, for even our small party seemed too many for comfort. We also carried horses in the hold, so we preferred to stay on deck as much as the weather allowed. Even in the Middle Sea, which is usually calmer than the ocean waters around England, vessels rarely ventured far from land, and we ate and slept ashore as often as we could.

Our captain was a Genoese, whose French I could not understand at all, but the real commander was Robert de Turnham, Richard’s admiral, who had done such magnificent work in sweeping Saladin’s fleet off the seas and keeping the crusade supplied.

On the third day, we entered Limassol harbor in Cyprus. Richard had conquered the island on his outward trip, then sold it to the Templars. When they failed to pay him for it, he had given it to Guy of Lusignan as compensation for losing the throne of Jerusalem. Probably this visit involved money, because I noticed that the king was accompanied by a couple of heavy chests when he came back from wherever he had gone.

From Cyprus we pushed on to Rhodes, sailing against the wind as best we could. We had been fortunate with the weather so far, but autumn had been stormy and kept sending brief squalls to remind us of what it could do. I had no idea where we were heading, and I doubted that either king or captain knew either. God would decide.

We had two notable minstrels aboard, Blondel de Nesle and Sir Conon de Béthune, and in fair weather they would sing, with all the passengers and most of the crew listening eagerly. Sometimes they would invite me to perform, which I was honored to do, and rarely Richard himself would. But he never acknowledged my presence. I worried, but I had to assume that he had some reason for bringing me, and another for ignoring me.

Even from a distance, I saw great improvement in my former patient. Relieved of the stress of running the war, he rapidly reverted to regal form—abrupt, confident, inquisitive, unpredictable, and autocratic. He had a fine musical ear and could compose masterful ballads, or even very humorous songs, as he did once at Beit Nuba in response to one the Duke of Burgundy composed to mock him. You could never be quite sure with Richard when he was being humorous, for he could also be deadly, like most kings.

We bypassed the Aegean Sea, although I had secretly hoped that we would turn north and head for Byzantium, no longer ruler of half the old Roman empire, but still the world’s greatest city. We didn’t, but early in November we arrived at Corfu, an island off the west coast of Greece that is officially ruled by the Byzantines. In practice its dock area was a boiling pot of every race and nationality from Spain to Outremer and England to Egypt. Richard went off with an armed escort and the rest of us pitched in to help unload the horses so the poor brutes could see the sun again. Passengers drew the line at helping with the mucking out the hold, though.

I never learned who Richard visited, probably several people, for it was almost dark when he returned. By then water casks had been refilled, victuals purchased, and the four-footed cargo had been reloaded—unhappily.

At dawn we set out again, heading roughly westward, as if bound for Italy, but the winds were erratic, so we made little progress. One evening, as I was hanging over the rail wondering whether I would feel better or worse if I did lose my dinner, who should set his arms alongside mine but William Legier. It was entirely in character that William never got seasick. He would regard that as unforgivable weakness.

“So what do you foresee, Merlin Red Duck?” he demanded with loathsome joviality.

“Too many things.”

He gave me a quizzical glance. “Good or bad?”

“Bad, mostly.”

“Where is the king headed?”

Perhaps it was the queasiness in my stomach, but I forgot discretion and snapped at him. “How should I know? I haven’t spoken to him in weeks.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because he refuses me audience. I am out of favor for some reason.”

“But you could advise him?”

“I could certainly warn him of disaster if he stays on this course.”

“Stay right here!” William told me, and marched off to beard the Lionheart in his den. I doubt if any other man aboard would have dared do what he did—or survived doing it, whatever it was. Nobody confronts kings! All I know is that he came skating over the rocking deck a few minutes later and careened into the rail beside me.

“The king will see you now.”

When I tried to protest, he took me by the scruff of the neck and propelled me in the right direction.

“Don’t try to kneel! Sit there.” King Richard pointed to the bunk, where he would have been short of headroom, and settled himself on the solitary chair, which was lower. I had never seen inside the royal cabin before. It was tiny, especially for a man of Richard’s size. He poured two beakers of wine and handed me one. I accepted it, although my belly roiled at the sight of it.

He said, “Sage Durwin,” then took a moment to gather his thoughts. “Baron Weldon tells me that you have news for me. I admit that I have been neglecting you of late.”

I muttered something as tactful as I could fashion. Royal apologies are so rare that there are no rules for dealing with them.

He smiled bitterly in the flickering lamplight. “At our last meeting, you told me I had won. You said that all I need do was wait until spring and Saladin would be gone, his empire crumbling into pieces. What you didn’t know, but I did, was that I could not stay until Easter as I had originally planned. I was out of money, and the army was dwindling as men gave up and went home. The French refused to cooperate in any way, although they expected me to cover their expenses there—while they continued to spew out vicious lies about me, accusing me of taking bribes, betraying the cause by dealing with the heathens, having people stabbed or poisoned. They were even denouncing you as a devil-inspired witch. I absolutely had to leave before winter! Saladin was in much the same predicament. His emirs were tired of the war, threatening to take their men and go home. But I had to have an armistice to take away with me, so that in two or three years I can come back and try again.”

Return! I had never imagined anything like that. He had bled England white to finance one crusade. He had showered money like rain to fight his campaign—kings never count costs. Now he intended to do it all over again? Nor had I ever been able to understand why my prophecy about Saladin’s death should have made me so unwanted. Kings think in strange ways. I said nothing and tried not to watch the wine swilling back and forth in my beaker.

“So?” the king said. “What prophecies do you have for me tonight, Lord Merlin?”

I looked him straight in the eye, which is a breach of courtly etiquette, and asked him a direct question, which is another. “Where are you heading now?”

He frowned but answered civilly enough. “To the coast of France, west of Marseilles. There are many little ports I could land at. The shores of the Middle Sea are not far from my duchy of Aquitaine. Count Raymond is a vassal of mine. He has done homage to me for his county.”

“Perchance he has, Lord King, but he is now in connivance with King Philip. I have seen them together, drinking toasts to your destruction. Count Raymond was boasting that he has set guards on every point at which you might land. And Philip swore that, once Raymond handed you over, you would never see the sun again.”

Richard’s glare chilled my blood. “You swear this?”

“I swear it as I swore to you of Jaffa, and Tell al-Khuwialifia! Toulouse means death for you, Lord King. Philip will lock you up until you die, an event that he may hasten by losing the key.”

It is not unknown for kings to starve prisoners to death. Even Richard’s father sometimes indulged in such an execution, although he did not normally favor barbarities. And Richard’s great-grandfather, Henry I of England, locked up his own brother for 26 years, until he died—childless, of course, so that Henry could inherit his dukedom.

King Richard sighed. “We were good friends once, Philip and I.”

Not now, though.

As though he had heard me thinking, the king said, “But not now. He has not merely broken his crusaders’ oath, but another oath, which we swore together, not to molest each other’s lands until we were both home again. His hatred of me has become a madness, a canker of the brain. He has attacked our dukedom of Normandy. He has been spreading lies all across Christendom: that I tried to poison him when he was in Outremer, that I paid the Old Man of the Mountain to have King Conrad assassinated, that I accepted a huge bribe from Saladin not to attack Jerusalem, that at the end I poisoned the Duke of Burgundy, and so on. Worst of all is the bitter, bitter truth—that the huge effort and expense put into the crusade has failed to recover the Holy City, and I was its leader, the traitor who would not even lay siege to it.”

He began to rise as if he wanted to pace, but then he remembered that he could not even straighten up in the cabin, and sat down again.

“If Toulouse is out, then I must sail to Italy. That is how my wife and sister were planning to go. They were to proceed to Rome and seek protection from the Pope. I shall follow. The Pope, certainly, must respect the Truce of God.”

Ha! Although the current Pope was not the one Richard had so grossly insulted on his way out to Outremer, the Vatican has the longest memory in the world. Besides, Pope Celestine was close to ninety and well past his best.

“And where from there, Lord King? The northern half of Italy is ruled by the German Emperor. He is another who has sworn a treaty with Philip, your foe. They agreed that the Truce of God does not apply to you, that you must be put on trial for all those imaginary crimes you just mentioned—murder, treason, and so on—and that the Truce of God cannot shield a traitor. I have seen them shaking hands on it.”

The Lionheart scowled, but he nodded. “Aye. Henry is another of my enemies, because he claims to rule the island of Sicily, and I befriended King Tancred when I was there.”

There was a pause, while I wondered if I was about to be thrown overboard. When the king spoke again, his voice was louder and harsher.

“God’s legs! Must you croak like a raven all night, Merlin Redux? Have you no good news for me at all? Where do you suggest I go?”

The air was icy. I wondered if the real reason he had denied me audience for so long was just that he feared what dismal future I might reveal.

“King Philip boasts that you cannot set foot anywhere between Spain and Byzantium without falling into his hands, Lord King, but if he is watching the ports and harbors, you may escape him, for I foresee a shipwreck in my own future, a vessel driven aground in shallow water by a mighty storm. Many men will make their way to the beach, so I do not believe that the death toll will be high. On such a night no one will be watching for a king’s landing. I prophesy that you will wade into Christendom unseen, not stroll down a gangplank to be arrested.”

He stared at me in silence for a long minute, his face expressionless. Then, “Is shipwreck the best comfort you can offer, Baron Durwin? Tell me some positives you foresee.”

“I wish I could just pour good news out for you, sire, like ale from a barrel, but my skill does not work that way. I admit that I have one sure prophecy to give you, but it is not without its own shadows. I know where you will celebrate Christmas—feasting in a great hall with music and good cheer.”

He smiled then, but his smile was wary. “Who hosts this wondrous Yuletide banquet, and where?”

“It is a mighty castle, sire, Dürnstein by name.”

He frowned. “Sounds German. Whose arms does it bear?”

I braced myself for trouble. “The banner it flies shows one white bar between two red.”

I had never seen those arms in real life, but it had not been hard to find someone aboard who could identify them for me, and Richard certainly knew.

“Leopold?” he roared. “The duke of Austria? That avaricious, pretentious, opportunistic weasel, who tried to claim a major share of the booty in the relief of Acre?” And whose banner had ended in the moat, thrown there by Richard’s own men, or so I had heard. “You would have me fall into his greedy, grasping little hands?”

“Not by my choice, Lord King!”

Richard slumped back on his chair. “Besides, his liege is the German Emperor. I am so far above Leopold’s rank that Henry will undoubtedly demand that Leopold turn me over to him, as the laws of chivalry require. And you tell me that Henry is in league with Philip!”

Here I must tread with care. “But did you not just describe Leopold as greedy, my liege? To King Philip you are a hated foe, to be butchered. To the Germans you will be a very valuable hostage.”

Richard knew what I was thinking, and did not like it, but he nodded. “And of course you assume that the king of England can surely outbid the king of France?”

He took up the wine flask and offered me more until he saw that I had not touched what I already had. For a few minutes we listened to the creaking and splashing of the ship. Then—“There is another possibility,” he said, “and that is Hungary. It has a seaport on the eastern coast of the Adriatic sea, and King Bela’s wife, Margaret, who is King Philip’s half-sister, is also the widow of my late brother Henry. I am on good terms with Bela, and he detests Duke Leopold, so I am sure he would aid me, and his lands abut Saxony in the north. And Saxony is also possible! My sister Matilda was married to Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony. She died three years ago, but that Henry would give me safe passage to the Baltic. I could sail to England from there. You follow?”

I said yes, but in fact I had not the slightest idea about all this geography he was throwing at me. In the end it did not matter, so I have never bothered to investigate it.

“So there we are, Latter-day Merlin. If ever a king of England needed a prophet to guide him, it is I. You have never failed me yet, so I must trust you now. Can you find the admiral for me?”

I found de Turnham for him, and he found the captain, who called out the watch. The sailors went aloft to do whatever it was that the sails required. Then the helmsman turned the ship, and soon we were running eastward, before the wind. I found a sheltered corner and went to sleep.

Driven by westerlies, we returned to Corfu much faster than we had left it. As we were entered the harbor, which was strangely empty now, with so many vessels taken out of service for the winter, I saw the king up on the aft castle, conferring with de Turnham. He was pointing and I could tell he was indicating a group of three galleys, rocking at anchor.

Galleys are faster than sailing ships, but their low freeboard cannot tolerate high winds and rough water. They could not carry our horses, nor even all the king’s companions. To venture out to sea in them now, near the end of November, was insanely risky, but men can be bribed to do anything, and the Lionheart never skimped when he wanted something.

He sold off the horses. He made sure that the men he was leaving behind were supplied with money to pay their fare homeward in the spring. I was not asked if I wanted to stay or continue, I was simply told I would be in the king’s boat. I felt it my duty to obey, although I admit I was heartily sick of the hardship. I was the oldest man in the party, and felt it.

We were well into December when we left Corfu for the second time. In the first two days we made excellent progress, but then the weather changed. A wicked storm began to churn the sea, making the rowers’ work impossible. The galley had a sail, but it could do little except run before the wind, and as the tempest rose, we began to ship water. I remembered that I had foreseen a shipwreck.

The Adriatic Sea, as I now learned, is a northward-pointing arm of the Middle Sea, between Italy on the west and the Balkan lands on the east. Venice is at the north end, on the Italian side, although it is an independent state, and likes to think it rules the Adriatic. That claim is increasingly being challenged by the city of Ragusa, on the opposite side, but farther south, and it was toward Ragusa that we ran.

The other two galleys made it safely into the fine harbor there. The king’s did not. Night was falling, the surf was fearsome, and we were up to our knees in icy water. Ahead of us was a rocky shore. We were all praying, but no man was louder than King Richard, and he swore a great oath that he would build a church worth 100,000 Venetian ducats if he were spared. Not all of us made it safely to shore, but he did.

The galley grounded in a gully between two great rocks. Waves rolled past us, then surged back, and the trick was to ride the surf inward and find something to hang onto to resist the backwash. I managed the first part, and then felt myself being swept seaward again. Someone caught my arm and held me until it was safe to struggle landward once more. I did not see who it was, but he must have been as strong as a bull. I still suspect that it was Richard himself, although he just laughed when I asked him later.

“You did warn me about a shipwreck, Merlin. You were right again!”

No. The shipwreck I had foreseen had not contained rocks. There was another still to come.

We scrambled into the woods in search of shelter. Two sailors were missing and three others had broken bones, but that was a small price to pay for such a landfall. Most of us had escaped with scrapes and bruises. Either our luck held or Richard’s donation was accepted with a bonus, for we discovered a small priory. The monks greeted us fulsomely, although we outnumbered them many times over. They lit fires, prepared food, and generally could not have been kinder. Nor did the prior object when I asked him if I might chant over the casualties. It was fortunate that months of war duty had taught me the spells for healing wounds so well that I knew them by heart.

Morning brought a penance of aching bruises and a bright sunny day to mock our ordeal. We had eaten all the food on the island, and anxiously awaited information about the other two galleys. Boats were reported approaching from Ragusa, so it was a fair guess that at least some of our companions had survived. I and others had been billeted in the scriptorium, which reminded me that I had not written to Lovise since we left Acre, almost two months ago. How long a letter would take to go from Ragusa to Oxford in midwinter I could not guess, but the shipwreck had been a reminder of mortality, so I asked one of the monks if I might buy a piece of vellum to write a brief letter. He pointed to a box and told me to help myself to anything in it that would serve.

I chose the most worthless scrap I could find. It had originally been quality goat skin, but it had been written on and scraped clean for reuse at least twice. Peering at the shadowy remains of letters, I decided that the earlier texts had been written in either Arabic or Hebrew. Only a genuine miser could grudge me this, so I found a quill and some ink and sat down to write to my dearest. A scriptorium, by definition, must have light, and large windows on a breezy winter morning mean that a scribe must spend more time blowing on his hands and chafing them than he does writing, but I scribbled away in a frenzy of loneliness and homesickness. When I had reached the bottom of the page, I signed it and sprinkled sand on it.

Then I read over what I had written, which was not at all what I had thought I was writing. I had not addressed it to my wife, and I had not signed my own name to it. The writing bore little resemblance to my usual hand. After staring at it in bewilderment for some time, I decided that the ghost of Myrddin Wyllt was directing me, and I must continue to trust in its benevolence.

A little later that morning, I found a chance to sidle up to the king and hand him the little scroll. “I think this must have slipped out of your portfolio, sire. It looks as if it may be important—some day.”

He frowned, read it over, and lost color. “Where did you get this?”

“I, um, not sure where it came from. All I can say is—keep it safe.”

He stared at me for a moment and then made the sign of the cross.

It was to be a long time yet before I learned what had happened to Lars, but this would be a good place to summarize his adventures. The two queens had a relatively uneventful voyage from Acre to Italy, disembarking in Naples, and then traveling by land to Rome. There they were made welcome by old Pope Celestine, and they were content to remain until in Rome they learned where Richard was and what he was doing. They would have received the latest news, which was that Queen Eleanor and Justiciar Coutances were managing to hold England together. Lord John had not yet managed to seize the crown, although he was poised to do so the moment word of his brother’s death arrived.

Nor had King Philip annexed Richard’s domains in France, but he had warrants out for his arrest in virtually every port from Spain to the Hungarian border. No one knew where the Lionheart was, or even when he had left Acre, if he even had.

Lars had no desire to waste months doing nothing in Rome. He offered to carry letters for the two queens, and they obtained a passport for him from the Pope. While his king and father were struggling to go anywhere, Lars made travel look easy. He managed to buy passage on one of the last boats to sail from Ostia, and landed in Marseilles. No one was much interested in a twenty-year-old minstrel, and anyone who thought to impress him as sailor or foot soldier was easily deflected by the papal passport.

He purchased a couple of horses and set out for Aquitaine. There he located Otto of Saxony, one of King Richard’s many nephews, who was running the duchy in his uncle’s absence. After that, Lars traveled royally, with an armed escort, all the way to Dieppe and the tricky crossing to England. Even there the sun shone on him—literally this time—and he played his gittern and sang to the sailors. He stepped ashore that same evening, refreshed and happy to be back in a country where people spoke his mother tongue and knew how ale ought to be brewed.

He reported to Queen Eleanor in Winchester, and then rode home to Oxford, where he found his mother chopping herbs in the dispensary. He claimed later that this was the first time he had ever seen her weep.

By then all Christendom knew that the Lionheart had left the Holy Land, but nobody knew where he was. His brother, of course, was already insisting that he must have drowned.

Which he very nearly did in our second shipwreck.

Ragusa was a bustling, thriving city, a port that served as a market place for Muslims, Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, and even for folk from as far away as Barcelona and Damascus. After our wreck on Lokra, any sensible voyager would have settled down there for the winter and resumed his travels in the spring, but the Lionheart had an empire to lose and dared not tarry.

Ragusa was also awash with money, home to both banks of its own and representatives of the great Venetian and Tuscan houses. Because the king of England had unlimited credit, in two days he somehow formalized his impetuous donation of a church and arranged for the remaining two galleys to continue the voyage. How much he paid their owners for that death-defying contract I never learned. The two galleys could not carry us all, so he again provided some men with money to find their own way home. After a special mass in the cathedral, he herded the rest of us aboard, and off we went.

I assumed, although I hated the thought, that he had accepted my vision of him as a Yuletide guest of Duke Leopold, and was therefore heading to Austrian territory. I did not ask him, and nobody else seemed to know his intentions. He might have hoped to sneak all the way across Austria in disguise to seek the safety of Saxony and the Baltic, or he might have been on his way to Venice, which could have agreed to smuggle him across Europe disguised as merchant. I doubted that, because everyone knew that if you tried to buy a Venetian’s mother, he wouldn’t agree until he had asked around to see if he could get a better offer. Possibly Richard’s hopes were still set on King Bela of Hungary. All of these prospective destinations were located at the northern end of the Adriatic.

Whatever his aim, the weather made the final decision. A storm blew up and the galleys were helpless, shipping water and driven helter-skelter by the wind. Waterlogged, they ran aground in the surf and at once began to break up. We had to wade and swim ashore in rain and darkness. I was struck on the head by a floating oar and almost drowned. I swallowed so much seawater that I had to be held upside down to drain. My memories of the rest of that night are fuzzy indeed.

We had made landfall, if the term can be stretched to serve, somewhere in the armpit of the Adriatic. The coast was low and marshy, but when morning came, one of the sailors could testify that we were not far from Aquileia, and that there was a monastery there.

I managed to walk some of the way and was carried the rest. I remember little of our visit, mostly just lying on a very hard, narrow bed in the sanitarium, and croaking to an angry monk that I did not want to be treated with leeches, thank you. It was a cold and narrow room, very dark because the shutters were closed against the storm. They rattled and whistled. A dying monk on one side of me never stopped croaking psalms in a mixture of Latin and a patois so garbled that only angels could have understood it. On the other hand lay one of our former oarsmen, writhing in pain. In my feverish condition, I simultaneously wished that Lars was there and thanked God that he wasn’t.

Our stay there was brief, just long enough for Richard to acquire horses and less conspicuous clothing. He was facing a journey of weeks through country that was itself as hostile as its inhabitants and the current winter weather. His following had shrunk to around twenty, even if I was included—I, who counted as much less than one. He came in person to see how I fared, looming over my cot in the gloom like a red-bearded pine tree.

“Are you well enough to travel, Baron?”

The thought of standing up was terrifying, but I said, “When, Lord King?”

“Right now, and you are addressing the merchant Hugo, returning from pilgrimage to the Holy Land.”

“You are still my liege, Master Hugo—if you could just give me a hand up.” My head alone weighed more than a horse. He hauled me upright without trouble and steadied me as my wits flitted around like a flock of bats. Then he lowered me back down again.

“Your fever is worse than mine,” he growled. “Stay here and live.”

He turned away. I was too relieved to argue, but just then that accursed monk with the leeches appeared beside my cot again and I raged at him to go and do something anatomically impossible—German is a good language for cursing. The Lionheart whirled around and came back. “You can speak their tongue?”

I said, “No, Lord King!” but he didn’t believe me. In no time I was dressed, outside, and being hoisted onto a horse.

In Roman times, Aquileia had been one of the world’s great cities, but Attila and his Huns sacked it in 452, and the monastery was about all that remained. In as much as anyone held overall authority in that area, it was probably Duke Leopold, although others might dispute that. The monks could converse in Latin, and Richard and most of his company understood it, but they were at sea in the dialect of German that the local people spoke.

In truth I could not speak German either, but I had spent all my life working with documents written in what in England we called the Old Tongue, and some of those incantations, like the Myrddin Wyllt, dated back almost to the coming of the Anglo-Saxons. The Old Tongue and Old German had so many similar words that I could recognize much of what the locals said, likely much better than I could have understood the imperial nobility or even city-dwelling commoners.

And Fate or the Good Lord had put me in the next bed to that delirious monk with the psalms. He had a repertoire of four, which he sang in a mixture or Latin and German, and I knew three of them, so after a couple of days I could have sung along with him, had I been capable of singing anything. In short, I had picked up a working vocabulary. My grammar was hopeless, but given enough time, I could understand and make myself understood. In the next couple of weeks, I was to become almost proficient.

And so began what must surely be the worst journey that any king of England ever endured, and was certainly mine. Fortunately, my memories of it are very patchy. The sight of the great icy mountains ahead scared me so much that I closed my eyes. I did not ride, I just sat on the saddle and shivered, letting my mount go wherever the others went.

The sailors remained at the monastery, probably intending to make their way south to Venice. I knew all the rest of us, of course, those who had survived the latest shipwreck, although four of the Knights Templar who had joined us at Cyprus tended to keep very much to themselves. Some who had left Acre with us, almost two months ago now, had parted at Corfu or Rugosa. Some had drowned. More were to die shortly.

There were no roads, only trails and forest paths, plus cold and drizzly rain. That first night we came to a town below a big castle on a hill. King Henry had rid England of private strongholds, but I have often wondered if there is a single hill in the rest of Christendom that lacks a castle or the remains of one. We invaded the inn, a tiny cottage, which we overwhelmed. I found a corner not too far from the fire where I could sit on the floor, lean back in the angle, and doze. I refused food, drank what they called beer, and wakened only when people tripped over my feet. I think I was really hoping I would die soon, or that they would all just go away in the morning and leave me behind by mistake.

Richard summoned the innkeeper, who understood some French, and demanded to know the name and style of the lord who owned the castle. He was told that it was Count Engelbert of Gorz.

“Then summon a strong lad to carry this message to the noble count, and tell him that Hugo the merchant and his companions seek hospitality this night in the name of God.” Whereupon he handed the man a purse.

“Aye, my lord, I shall send my son, who is both strong and honest.”

After that everyone settled down to drink while the drink lasted and eat whatever the man’s wife and daughters could cook as soon as they produced it.

I suppose it was near to an hour later that the fevered seer in the corner suddenly opened blank eyes and croaked, “My liege!” Whispered calls for silence spread out through the crowd like ripples on a pond. And again I croaked, “My liege!”

The king said, “What do you see?”

“It was too much! That ring was too rich a gift. He has guessed who sent it.”

I vaguely remember farseeing the swarthy count with the shaven chin and thin moustache. I remember him frowning as he opened the purse and gazing in wonder at the ruby ring he took from it. In what language he spoke, I do not know, but old Myrddin Wyllt understood for me.

“No mere merchant sent this! Describe this man!”

The stammering, cringing youth described the red-bearded giant he had left back in the inn.

“Only a king would own such a treasure, and I know of only one king who might venture into these parts, and only because he is returning from the crusade. The emperor himself ordered me to arrest him, but I will not break the Truce of God. Give him back his gift and bid him God speed.”

As soon as I had quoted Engelbert’s reaction, I stopped talking and went back to sleep. To provide hospitality to travelers, especially pilgrims and crusaders, is any Christian’s sacred duty, but Engelbert was being unusually devout in defying orders to the contrary from his liege. Every other landowner from there to Barcelona must have received such orders also, and few would have made the choice he had. On the other hand, given Richard’s fearsome reputation as a warrior, Engelbert might reasonably have declined to rally his own small troop of knights and send them down to seize the royal fugitive by force. Would he clear his conscience by sending word of this encounter on ahead to higher authority, so that a larger force could be arrayed in ambush?

We did not tarry to find out. I was later told that nobody, not even our highly skeptical Father Anselm, suggested that my farseeing should be ignored. In a mad rush, everyone wrapped up again and went out to saddle the poor tired horses. Unfortunately, someone remembered to fetch me.

The rain had stopped, the sky was icily clear, and the moon was at, or very close to, the full, and eastward its light glittered on icy peaks. We rode off into the forest again, heading northwest. I remember even less of the ensuing day than of the one before. I do recall being fevered and very hungry, for that bleak land held few inhabitants, and those few had little spare food to sell. I remember cursing Myrddin Wyllt root and branch. Late in the day we reached another town, Udine, but news of our coming had preceded us.

A castle on a hill overlooked the town, of course, but Richard now knew better than to seek hospitality in castles.

We found an inn, a larger place than the previous night’s, and the landlord was happy to board such a large company this late in the year. Our horses were in worse condition than their riders, for they had been given little time to graze, so the king distributed money and sent men off to acquire as many fresh mounts as possible before curfew sent everyone home to bed. They wanted to take me along as interpreter, but I refused and the king forbade me to go anyway. He, being of memorable stature, wanted to stay out of sight, and no doubt he also wanted to keep his eye on me in case I began raving again. I remember the two of us in a dim room, on either side of a crackling fire. We were both feverish and exhausted. I had the uneasy sensation that he was using me as a guard dog, relying on me to bark prophecies whenever danger threatened.

There were others present, of course, guarding their liege. I was the only one not armed, but I did not feel strong enough to lift a sword, let alone swing one. My head ached, my throat burned. I floated in and out of consciousness—yet once I roused myself slightly, forced my eyes to focus on Richard, and muttered, “Lord, where is Argentan?”

Richard’s gaze flickered, for he never took well to being questioned. “A small town in Normandy. I remember family Christmases there, when I was a child.” He probably then asked why I had asked, but I doubt if I replied.

Morning came, and a grubby, hungry rabble of fugitives roused themselves to gulp down a wine and rye bread snack. At best we faced more days of backbreaking travel, at worst early graves.

Suddenly the mood changed. The landlord appeared, bowing to Richard and presenting a well-dressed young man. “A gentleman wishing to speak with you, Goodman Hugo.”

He withdrew, but the newcomer just stood there, staring in shock at the king as if he knew him. Hands slid to sword hilts. Even I roused myself from my stupor.

“What can I do for you, fine sir?” asked the fake Hugo.

“I . . . I was told to look for . . . if it please, you, sir, I am Sir Roger of Argentan.”

The group of locals at the far end of the room were watching and listening, for they must sense the tension, although they probably could not understand the French being spoken—the unmistakable Norse-adulterated French of Normandy. The king glanced at me and then back to the intruder. “God be with you, Sir Roger, but you have yet to tell me how I may serve you.” He was a terrible actor, his tone completely lacking the humility of a merchant addressing a knight. He should be up and bowing, or else down and kneeling.

“I was told to inspect the inns in town to look for a man going by the name of Hugo, calling himself a merchant.”

“Then you have found him.”

Roger shook his head. He glanced at the angry glares surrounding him and whispered, “I think not, my lord. I was only a child, and you did not have that beard . . .”

“Who,” asked the king, “told you to look for me?”

“My liege,” Roger said, as if that must be obvious. “Count Meinhard, my wife’s uncle. He is also the brother-in-law of Count Engelbert of Gorz, who sent word that . . .” Sensing the sudden upsurge of rage, he stopped.

I felt a stab of despair, but the Lionheart would not despair if his head were on an executioner’s block. “You are mistaken, Sir Roger of Argentan!” No merchant would speak to a knight like that, clasping his sword hilt so menacingly.

Roger seemed close to tears. “I sang for you, Your Grace. In the choir . . . at Christmas.”

Obviously, pretense was not going to work. Richard released his sword. “And now you will go back up to that castle and sing about me, instead of for me?”

“No, no! My lord I know who you are, and my family has served yours for untold generations, ever since Duke Robert. I will not betray you, but the word is out, Your Grace, the word that you are in town! I do beseech you not to tarry here.”

Richard nodded and gave up the merchant pretense in favor of regal charm. “I must know of your family? Name some of them!”

Roger nodded eagerly and named two grandfathers and a great-uncle. Truthfully or not, Richard said he remembered them and named some of their campaigns. Greatly relieved, Roger even offered to give up his own horse, but the king declined the gift tactfully. Roger went on his way, swearing in the name of Our Lady of Rouen that he would not betray him.

The moment he was gone, the king turned to me. “Well?” For once I just closed my eyes and summoned a vision. It was gone in a flash, but I had seen and heard enough. “Not at all well, sire. He will try, but he is a bad liar. Count Meinhard will not believe him. You should leave town while you can.”

I wanted to scream at the thought of another winter day on horseback, but surely anything must be better than an Austrian jail. I went back to sleep while I had the chance. Perhaps I still hoped that I would be overlooked and left behind, but alas, I was the king’s seer, and too valuable to abandon. I was even given a fresh horse, for the scouting party had managed to acquire around ten new mounts, and Richard now split us into two groups. Most of the best fighters were left with the exhausted beasts who had brought us from Aquileia, and they perforce lagged behind as a rearguard. The rest of us pushed on into the forest.

Count Meinhard dispatched the knights of his militia after us, and inevitably they caught up with the laggards. In the forest gloom they may have failed to notice that Richard was not present, but in any case, the king’s men were not about to let the locals past, so there was a battle. Men were captured, wounded, or killed. I never learned the exact tally. They had done their duty and the Lionheart had escaped again.

After some hours that felt like the years of Methuselah, I disgraced myself by going to sleep and falling out of the saddle. Luckily, I broke no bones. After that, either William Legier or Conon de Béthune—or, when the road was wide enough, both of them—rode alongside, ready to catch me if I tried it again. If this sounds as if I were a soft-boiled, feeble, good-for-nothing unfit for such manly pursuits, that is exactly how I felt at the time. I was not the only one with fever by then—the king, especially, was suffering, perhaps in a relapse of a relapse of his serious sickness in Haifa. My only excuse, although I refused to mention it and no one else did, was that I was close to fifty. Richard was thirty-five, and very few of the others were older than he was.

The brief day ended but we pushed on by moonlight. Late in the night we found ourselves following an old Roman road, wide and straight. Like all such ancient highways it was in higgledy-piggledy condition, barely passable for long stretches, separated by patches of what it once had been, smooth and wide enough for four or five men to ride abreast. And after a while, the shade of Myrddin Wyllt came to our rescue. I have no memory of it myself, but I was told later that I suddenly pointed off to the right and declaimed, “Behold shelter and safe haven in the care of holy St. Gall!” If this is true and not just a joke made up later to tease the old man, I did it in my sleep.

Word was passed to the king and, sure enough, a track angled off to wind up the hillside. It was a steep climb, but we came at last to the Benedictine Monastery of San Gallo. We found the monks awake, having just completed their office of Lauds. I do have clear memories of Abbot Pio, tall and stark like a frosted pine tree, with an incongruous smile on his craggy face.

“All travelers are welcome, my lords, and especially those who have striven against the heathens in holy places. You may rest safe here in the Truce of God.” He was telling us that Duke Leopold’s warrant had been proclaimed even there, but he was going to ignore it.

He was as good as his word. The beds were hard but clean and the food plain but plentiful. We ate, slept, and prayed with the brethren. One of the novices found a stick with a branch that would make a handle, and shaped it into a cane for me. My other had vanished in the shipwreck.

We were all very grateful for such Christian charity, after the two counts’ rapacious behavior. I know that the king left a sizable donation, and I added one of the coins that Queen Eleanor had given me so long ago, out of the few I had been hoarding. We waited until moonrise before leaving to continue our journey toward a fearsome mountain range.

I knew the little hills that the English call mountains, and had caught glimpses of real ones from afar since I embarked on crusading, but these looming peaks were close and menacing. If winter snows began while we were in their midst, we might be stranded there until springtime. The Lord answered our prayers by granting us dry weather. Our road followed the valleys, and we never had to tackle serious slopes. Moreover, the winds were growing colder—and continued to do so as we headed north— while we were mostly wearing clothes that had been brought from Outremer.

The villages were small and unimpressive, the people suspicious, but more surly than aggressive, so that I felt that they would be no more inclined to cooperate with our enemies than they were with us. Their fields were stony, their herds sparse. Early on our pilgrimage, they mostly spoke a form of corrupted Latin, but the German elements grew more pronounced as we progressed. As I have said, I already knew a smattering of the words, and rapidly learned more.

“Truly,” the king said after we had bought some bread at a lonely inn, “you are a most useful tool, Lord Durwin—an ax, a sword, a scythe, and a razor, all in one.” He had dropped back to ride beside me for a while, as he did with all of us by turns.

“Jack of all trades and master of none, Lord King.”

“Nay, master of all. I am ashamed that I doubted you when we first met. You have amply proved your worth since then. I should have trusted my mother’s judgment of you. Have you any new prophecies to impart?”

I shook my head. “Nay, sire, but that may be a good sign. They seem to come mostly in time of danger.” One of Myrddin Wyllt’s prophecies still remained unfulfilled, and that was my vision of Richard celebrating Christmas in Duke Leopold’s castle. I did not mention that, but he must have been thinking of it also.

He rode in silence for a while, his face drawn, his eyes bright with fever. If Duke Leopold did not catch him, the fever might. Then he said, “Abbot Pio told me that it will take us at least a week to reach the great Danube River. That will be difficult to cross, for it is wide and our foes will be watching all the ferries. Another two or three days beyond that and we shall enter the realm of the Duke of Bavaria. He owes allegiance to the emperor, but they are not on good terms, and his lands run with the Duke of Saxony’s, who used to be married to one of my sisters. So in ten days, God willing, we shall be able to hold our heads up and breathe freely again.”

I had lost exact track of the date, but I was sure that ten days must put us past Christmas.

I kept expecting to see troops of armed men riding after us, or lined up across our path, but they did not appear. Our rearguard had never caught up with us, so they must have lost the battle outside Udine. Whatever the outcome, Count Meinhard of Udine would certainly have sent the news to his liege, so it probably passed us while we were taking refuge in San Gallo’s monastery at Moggio.

We crossed a difficult pass, where the road was more mythical than passable, then descended into richer lands, although still mountainous. Here there were silver mines and prosperity, so there were more people in the valleys, with farms and even some grand houses. At every town gate, strangers were required to identify themselves before being allowed to enter, and we tried to pass as merchants. At a sizable town named Friesach, the trap was sprung.

Some hours before, William Legier had eased his horse close to mine, interrupting my daydreams of rest and hot food.

“From now on,” he said, “whenever we enter a town, you and I are to stay close to the king. If necessary, the others will create a diversion to let him escape, but he wants us both with him.”

I digested the news. Me, yes. I spoke the language—after a fashion, at least better than anyone else. But William was one of the deadliest fighters, so why not keep him in the rearguard?

We knew each other so well that he guessed what I was thinking and scowled. “You speak German,” he said. “I speak Horse.” Ah, that made sense! Every knight in Christendom understood horses, but William was superb with them. Many years ago, back in Helmdon, I had seen him almost frozen with fear on a horse’s back, but—with his usual talent of being outstanding at anything he tried—he had since mastered every aspect of horsemanship. No doubt he had benefitted from the experience he had gained while helping his father as King Henry’s chief forester. “But Richard only speaks King?”

He laughed. “He surely was not fluent in Merchant!”

We were allowed into the city, but throughout his life, the Lionheart was very rarely outwitted, and his contingency plan worked perfectly. He and his chosen two companions split off from the others, and the larger group made themselves conspicuous. Like a bull turning to a red rag, the Austrian troops pounced on them in the market square. There was a fight, and meanwhile the fugitive king, guided by his seer, slipped unnoticed out of town.

Friesach was obviously the last town we would escape, though. I was unarmed, and the king’s distemper was waxing steadily worse. I think that any other man would have given up at Friesach or soon after. Not he! He set a merciless pace, so that for three days and nights we hardly stopped. It almost killed me, and was even harder on the horses. Without William’s skill, I am sure they would all have foundered beneath us. He kept rotating them, so that each suffered an equal share of the king’s greater weight. He gave them brief grazing breaks at night, but never enough to satisfy them. Despite his care, they developed saddle sores, and so did I. A couple of times we purchased human food at isolated inns or hamlets, eating it while we rode.

If you consider it impossible for three horses to have gone so far in so little time, I will admit that there were moments when I wondered about that myself. For instance, I found myself riding a piebald for some hours, and could not recall seeing it before— or, indeed, after. Sometimes, and especially at night, William would suggest that our mounts needed a rest, and he would scout ahead. When he returned, he was often astride something new. Neither Richard nor I ever spoke of the matter, for it would have been treasonous to suggest that the king of England was now a horse thief.

Following his lifetime practice of astonishing me, William had so distinguished himself in the Battle of Jaffa that he had become a royal favorite. He was almost as old as I, and thus around ten years older than the king, but it was his endurance and determination, as much as his horse sense, that carried us through that nightmare.

Everywhere I sensed eyes upon us. Every trudging, slope-shouldered peasant was a Leopold spy, every cottage held a garrison of his troops. Ironically, we were riding straight to the arch-villain’s capital, for his palace is located in a town called Vienna, and all roads led there. The flies were heading into the heart of the web.

You will understand that my memories of that hellish ride are very blurred. We bypassed towns whenever as we could, so I never learned their names. When we came to a ford, either William or I would scout ahead to make sure that it was not being patrolled. We dared not even trust monasteries then, in the heart of Austrian territory, for Richard’s enemies had thoroughly blackened his name. Everywhere he was being proclaimed as a murderer and traitor, stained with the blood of Conrad of Montferrat and the Duke of Burgundy, loaded with bribes from Saladin, and would-be poisoner of the king of France. Can you doubt that William and I, who knew that he was guilty of none of these charges, were willing to do our utmost for him, whatever the cost?

On the third day we rode out of the hills and onto lush plains. At last—and we knew in our hearts that it was the end—we saw the mighty Danube ahead of us, and a mere glimpse of it was enough to drain the dregs of our hopes. At Vienna it is at least a mile wide, a moving lake, full of islands and sandbars. None of us had ever seen a river to match it, and I imagine that only the Nile of Egypt could.

Vienna is a sprawl of hovels on the nearer bank, with St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the dukes’ Babenberg Palace the only stone buildings. There are strict rules that only Austrians may trade within the city, so foreigners’ markets have sprung up all around it. We turned aside to a hamlet called Erdberg, where there are a few inns, stables, and not much else, but it is close to a great market called Rochus.

I strained my rudimentary German to obtain lodging at a self-proclaimed inn, which was merely the back room of an old man’s hut, where we had to provide our own food. William and I put the king to bed and stacked the horses’ saddles and other tack in a corner, which left little floor for us to sleep on, but to discard such valuable equipment might have attracted attention. Then William led the poor animals off to buy food, water, and shelter for them. I told him the words I hoped he would need.

I suppose I stayed behind as a guard over the king, but I was asleep when William returned. He nudged me awake with a good hard kick and I went staggering off down to Rochus to buy food. I saw many men there wearing strange clothes and speaking even stranger tongues, probably Hungarians, Byzantines, and even Russians, so I did not attract as much attention as I might have done, but my iron-reinforced shoe alone served to make me conspicuous. My attempts to bargain were rudimentary, and I could hardly speak any language at all through the flood of saliva that a glimpse of food produced.

I hobbled back to the inn, only to find my two companions already fast asleep. I ate one sour and shriveled apple, then lay down next to William, and joined in the snoring chorus.

That night I dreamed of Our Lord’s Last Supper.

The next day, Richard could not stand, and was barely conscious. I watched over him while William went to scout the ferries. He returned shaking his head.

“It is hopeless,” he told me. “The duke has posted a dozen troops at every jetty or pier. He has vastly greater resources than the counts who have accosted us to date.”

I returned to the market and bought more food. But I also saw a gittern on one of the stalls and at once realized that it would make a good disguise for me—mine had been eaten by the Adriatic Sea. I asked to try it. It was old and battered, but once I had tuned it, it gave a fair sound, and I strummed a brief melody. That was rash of me, for it attracted attention, but when I started to bargain with the crone who ran the stall, she took pity on this ragged old cripple, and let me talk her down. I slung the cord around my neck and returned happily to Erdberg, taking a roundabout way to our shack and keeping my eyes open for followers. I did not see any, and assumed that Leopold was confident that his ferry watch would trap the fugitives eventually. Rationally, he would not expect us for a few days yet.

The next day Richard seemed somewhat better, restored by rest and food. William and I both reported on the situation. He thought for a while and then nodded. He had been a warrior and leader of warriors since he was sixteen, and knew better than other men how to face unwelcome reality.

“Do you know if the duke is at home?”

William shook his head.

I said, “Likely he is, because his flag flies over the palace. People are buying their Christmas victuals, so the feast must be very close.”

“And I should know by now to believe your prophesies, Lord Merlin.” After a few minutes’ thought, the Lionheart sighed and said, “I am worth a lot more alive than I would be dead.”

Neither of us argued with that. William could guess where this was leading, and I had foreseen it in my dreams.

“How far is it to the palace?” the king asked.

I said, “Farther than you should try to walk, Lord King. You are very weak and might collapse in the street. One of our horses might carry you yet, but if you try to ride there you will surely be arrested. The patrols will have been told to look out for a very tall man with a red beard.”

He sighed. “Then I shall not go, but my surrender must be voluntary. My two faithful barons, your service has been beyond praise. I have one last task for you, and I know you will find it the hardest of all.”

William had gone rigid, looking as if he faced a death sentence, but when it came, it was only the second-worst order that his king could give him.

“William, go home. Tell them where I am, if they do not already know. If they do know, then you must not tell anyone that you came this far with me. And we three must agree on a tale such that neither of you will be accused of betraying me. I don’t want you to be charged with treason after you have served me so well!”

Neither did I. A common penalty for treason is to be hung up by the ankles and flayed.

“Baron Pipewell,” the king continued, “you are the troubadour; sing us a song of invincible faith and courage overwhelmed by fell circumstance.”

“Aye, Lord King. Um . . . so it came to pass, that when you escaped the Austrian troops’ ambush in Friesach, and the rest of your escort were slain or captured, that William and I were over-looked in the confusion. Knowing your destination, we followed you, but were unable to catch up, you traveled so fast. We arrived here, in Erdberg, just in time to see you being escorted to the palace by the duke’s men-at-arms.”

The king frowned. “I traveled all this way alone?”

“No, sire. Back when we tarried in the monastery of St. Gall, a young novice who knew the way offered to escort us. German was his mother-tongue and he conversed with you in Latin. Abbot Pio gave his leave. You and he found shelter here,” I continued. “But today, when he had gone out to buy food, he somehow gave himself away. He was seized and beaten until he agreed to lead them to this shack.”

I was rewarded with a royal smile. “Heart-rending! I shall set it to music when I have the time. But, in reality, one of you will have to inform that Leopold popinjay where he can seize me.”

William now seemed quite sick with horror.

I set his mind at rest. “Don’t worry. I will do this. I have ways of evading capture that you do not.”

“I appreciate this sacrifice, Durwin,” Richard said. “But be careful that they do not learn your true name, lest word get back to England.”

He opened his purse and tipped out two heaps of coins, mostly silver, but also some of the Byzantine gold coins known as hyperpyrons. He must have brought them all the way from Ragusa or even Corfu. He poked at them with a finger until the piles looked about equal. I doubt if he realized, even then, that mere barons—and especially such unkempt rascally-looking vagrants as we had now become—who dared produce even one such coin, would at best be arrested as thieves, or more likely murdered for it.

Too overcome to speak, William scooped up his share, and tearfully saluted his liege. As he turned to the door, I stopped him with a prophecy, like an arrow through a hare. I did not know myself the words that I was about to utter.

“William, there is a boat with a furled green sail moored at a dock near the upstream end of the town. It will sail early tomorrow, when the wind changes. The owner will understand you if you use sign language and a little Latin, for there are many foreigners here. Pray book passage on it for both of us for two days. I will join you on board this evening.”

After a moment’s shocked silence, William nodded. The king managed to laugh in the middle of a coughing fit. “Oh, Merlin, I shall miss you! When you prophesy, I do feel like Arthur.”

William said hoarsely, “See you then, my—I mean, minstrel.” He almost ran out of the shack.

After that came my sentence. Richard brought out a ruby ring. It may have been the one I foresaw Count Engelbert refusing, for the count had ordered the messenger to return it, but whether he did so, I do not know. Either way, what the king handed to me was worth a small castle. He gave me some brief instructions on protocol and then told me to go.

As I took the ring, I recalled my dream of the Last Supper, where Jesus dipped a crust in the wine and passed it across to Judas.

“Aye, my lord. Saving Your Grace, it seems a little early in the day to call on a duke. First . . .” I dug under my rags to find the strip of silk I had been wearing as a sash to help keep me warm. On it were written half a dozen Release spells that I had often found useful during my travels. Lars had been carrying the rest of our collection when we parted. Our landlord was mumbling to himself in the other room, but I was confident that he would not understand Latin.

Richard had lain down and covered himself to keep warm. He was watching me curiously.

“Close your eyes, Lord King, unless you want to witness magic.”

“Do it.” He chuckled. “I shall not denounce you to the local sheriff.”

He didn’t truly believe me, but then I quietly sang the Hic non sum and disappeared.

“God's legs!”

I smiled, and instantly reappeared. “I just thought this might prove useful later, sire. It isn’t as wonderful as it seems, because I am only invisible as long as I remain perfectly still.” I never use that incantation without remembering how it saved Eadig’s life in Lincoln Castle, many long years ago. Later it saved mine a few times, too. It remains responsive for four or five days after it is chanted.

I sang the Præcipio tibi, the Fiat ignis, and a couple of others that might come in handy. Then it truly was time to go. “God be with you, my lord. You have a Christmas feast to look forward to, but further than that I cannot see.”

As a final precaution, before I left the hut, I went around to the back and hid my purse and my silken spell list in the tiny woodpile. Were I to be searched, that scroll would be enough to hang me.

I had not gone far before William accosted me, looking haggard—and dangerous. “I keep feeling that I should be doing that instead of you. But I don’t know that I can bring myself to sell out my king.”

“It isn’t easy, even for an out-of-work minstrel,” I assured him. “But Richard knows that I have tricks up my sleeve that you do not, and I am not selling him out as long as I am obeying his orders.” I wondered how convincing that argument would sound if I were ever on trial before the privy council.

“But who will believe you?” he asked, being brutally realistic.

“We are both at risk. But I am going to go home to Lovise and my children, just as you must want to be reunited with Millisende and your sons. The lion is caged, William, or soon will be, but his enemies are surely plotting against him and I am still his enchanter general. Now, please—we are really going to sail away tomorrow, you and I, on that boat with the green sail.”

Reluctantly, William nodded and stepped out of my way.

I doubt very much that my mission would have prospered had I been only the minstrel I pretended to be. Never had a little magic been more helpful. I trudged down the hill, through the sprawling market, and into Vienna. The city was unwalled, and in the busy Christmas throngs I was not challenged. With heavy heart I went on to the palace gate, where stood a pair of armored spearmen. The taller one, from the little I could see of his face, was not yet old enough to shave. The other was a grizzled veteran.

The trainee aimed his spear at my belly. “Password?”

“I am a stranger and know no passwords.”

“Your name and business?”

“I am Blondel, a minstrel, and I have business with the duke.” The spear jerked closer. “Be off with you. The duke has far too many minstrels already.”

“I bring a message from the king of England.”

The boy turned and looked anxiously at his superior, who barked, “You know where he is?”

“He sent me, and I will speak with no one but Duke Leopold.”

“No? Come with me.”He gestured, and I preceded him through the arch into the courtyard, leaving palace security in the incapable hands of the boy hero. My captor shouted for his captain, and a potbellied giant of a man came striding out of the guardroom.

“A minstrel, sir, name of Blondel. Claims he brings a message from the king of England.”

We eyed each other. He might be wondering why I wasn’t cowering enough. I was wondering if he had enough authority to get me through the palace maze to Leopold.

“What is this message?”

“I will speak it only to the duke himself.”

“You will speak it to me or I will have your teeth knocked out.” Some people believe that violence can solve problems, but in the long term it usually just creates more. I looked him straight in the eye and enchanted him into obedience with a whisper. “Præcipio tibi! Lead me to the duke.”

“Follow me, minstrel.” He spun around and we headed for the main door.

We were stopped twice more. The first time the captain bullied his way past a protesting steward. The second time our way was blocked by a dandified gentleman, who was addressed as “my lord” and obviously outranked my guide by about a thousand ducats a month. I could order the captain to kill him, of course, but that would cause trouble, or I could use the spell again. I was reluctant to do that, because this scented flunky would understand the Latin. He would still have to obey my orders, but he might guess why and scream for a bishop to anathemize me.

Instead I brought out the ruby ring. “His Grace Richard of England sends this as a token of friendship to his honored cousin, Duke Leopold.”

He attempted to grab the ring, but I whipped it out of his reach. “You are not the duke!”

He snarled, but then swiftly led me into an anteroom. My wait there was brief. I barely had time to start appraising the architecture and artwork before another door was opened and I was escorted into a minor reception hall, complete with throne. I had seen grander, but not recently. An even fancier courtier demanded my full name.

I gave the first one that came into my head. “The minstrel Blondel de Nesle, Your Grace.”

Word was passed, and in a surprisingly short time, Duke Leopold himself came marching in from a door behind the throne.

The Lionheart had spoken of him in such scathing terms that I expected a small, crooked man with a swarthy face and an annoying habit of wringing his hands. He was anything but— full-sized and handsome, clad royally in silks, fur, and jewels, with his hair and beard closely cropped, he looked every inch a duke. He was the same age as the Lionheart and almost as arrogant, which probably contributed to their mutual dislike.

Shuffling flatfooted behind him, though, came the largest priest I had ever seen, robed all in black, of course, monstrously bearded, carrying a jeweled crucifix in one hand, and a silver aspergillum in the other. He nailed me with arrowhead eyes full of hate, but he stopped a pace back from the duke and made no aggressive move.

I approached to a reasonable distance, knelt, and held up the ring. Speaking in Latin, of course, being unwilling to inflict my nursery German on him, I said, “Richard, king of England, offers this jewel to his cousin, Duke Leopold of Austria, in token of his friendship, and begs hospitality in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord.”

Nobility often profess family relationships with noble strangers, but they make up for that by treating their true relatives worse than their enemies.

Leopold said, “Well, Father? Richard’s pet witch is described as elderly, blond, and lame in his right foot. This one fits that recipe. Is he man or devil?” My first thought was that some of my former companions must have survived the battles, at least for long enough to be questioned, perhaps tortured. But it was also possible that knights returning from the crusade had been spreading stories about the Lionheart and his magical advisor.

The over-sized priest approached me, held up the crucifix, and gabbled Latin at me. He had a notably foul breath. Then he sprinkled me with what I assumed to be holy water. I did not scream and fly out through a window, which would probably have pleased him most. Instead I quietly recited the Nicene Creed and then made the sign of the cross. He backed away, baffled.

“He appears to be wholesome enough,” Leopold judged. “We can examine him more closely later. Bring me the bauble.”

A page approached me and nervously held out a silver tray at arm’s length. I placed the ring on it and he transported it to Leopold, who examined it carefully, concluded that it must be genuine, and slid it onto a finger to admire. Then he raised shrewd gray eyes to study me, still on my knees.

“Truly a handsome gift to receive by the hand of a wandering, ragged minstrel. But not many minstrels are also sorcerers— as I know you to be.”

“Only the credulous deem me such, Lord Duke. King Richard has sometimes honored me by listening to my counsel as well as my music.”

The duke laughed. “Well, we can discuss that later. So where will I find that rogue who spat on my honor at Acre and now claims a right to my hospitality?”

“I can lead him to you, but he charged me to warn you that he is seeking Christian charity, as one crusader to another. If you require him to yield, he will do so only to you personally.” This was a subtle but vital point. A guest is entitled to certain courtesies that a prisoner is not, and at some later date my king might wish to argue that he had surrendered voluntarily.

We all knew that any attempt to take the renowned Lionheart by force was certain to cost lives. I was confident that William Legier would still be lurking in the vicinity, and would come charging into any fight like a thunderstorm. And I was quite capable of setting a duke on fire if provoked.

Leopold rolled his eyes. “Then I had better come with you. I don’t want him slaughtering a squad of my knights so near to Christmas.”

We traveled on horseback, with an escort of a dozen mounted knights, one of them leading a spare horse. Aware that they were on their way to seize the most renowned warrior in Christendom, none of Leopold’s men looked happy. When I pointed out the old man’s shack, they dismounted and surrounded it. Then they waited for orders, fidgeting as if they held a wild boar at bay.

I said, “By your leave, Lord Duke, I shall inform His Grace that you have arrived.”

Remaining safely mounted, Leopold nodded and I walked into the shack. The old man was not there, but the Lionheart was, seated on a stool with his sheathed sword across his lap.

I bowed. “Duke Leopold is here, Your Grace.”

I did not know that those were to be the last words I would ever speak to him.

He nodded and rose. I saw him draw a deep breath before he walked out with head high. I remained inside, leaning against the wall where I had a view of events. The duke was still mounted, which was either a flagrant discourtesy or just cowardice. The Lionheart stared at him for a moment before speaking.

Then—“Your Grace, I crave hospitality in the name of Lord Jesus.”

“And I declare you to be under arrest upon numerous charges.” Richard raised his voice so all the riders could hear. “Then you are breaking the Truce of God, and will be damned to Hell for all eternity.”

Even Leopold flinched at those awful words. “But you are no true crusader, for you took the Devil’s bribes to let Saladin hold on to Jerusalem. Your sword, renegade!”

Richard handed up his sword, sheathed and hilt first; Leopold took it. Then he beckoned for the spare horse and told a knight, “Fetch the witch.”

I said, “Hic non sum. ” The man came in, inspected both rooms, and went back out again to report that I wasn’t there.

Richard had moved out of my sight, but I heard his mocking laugh. “Make up your mind, Lord Duke! If he was only a messenger, then you have no further business with him. If he’s a wizard, you’ll never catch him.”

Standing absolutely still is not easy, and I was afraid more men would be sent to make a more thorough search, for if anyone touched me or a draft even stirred my cloak, I would at once become visible again. I was counting on Leopold being too anxious to see his valuable prisoner secured behind bars to make a fuss over a mere flunky, and if I were the rumored sorcerer, then my magic might make him seem ridiculous. Sure enough, he told his escort to form up, and he rode off homeward with the most valuable moveable property in Christendom, the king of England.

It was the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, December 21^st.

I retrieved my purse and my silken grimoire and strolled down to the market to buy some dinner. I bought a pair of boots and a packsack to hold them, a warm cloak with a hood, and a clean shirt. That exhausted my usable money, because I could not imagine how I could change the gold into lesser coins without attracting suspicion. I still had the ruby ring that Queen Berengaria had given me, but for a ragamuffin like me to produce such a treasure would be asking to have the word ‘Thief’ placarded on my chest as I dangled in a hempen noose by the wayside.

In mid-afternoon I went down to the river. As I had expected, Leopold had withdrawn all his guards now that he had the boar in his net. I joined William on the boat.

We bedded down in a corner of the hold and conversed quietly in French. He asked about my Judas mission, and admitted that he had watched the king’s arrest from a distance. He revealed his nagging guilt by saying, “I wanted to draw my sword, take them all on singlehanded, and chop that Austrian devil duke into cutlets. I just hope he isn’t maltreating the Lionheart too badly.”

I laughed. “No, the Lionheart’s much too valuable for that! He’s sleeping now, in a warm bed, having eaten a fine dinner. The duke’s own doctor examined him and did nothing too barbaric to him. There are bars on his window and guards with drawn swords outside his cell, but that’s all—no chains or manacles. And that Austrian devil, as you so rightly call him, is currently dictating a long, gloating letter to his liege, the emperor, bugling his triumph to the skies.”

William groaned. “How do you know that? I’ve never known you just to pull prophecies out of the sky like this.”

Considering the matter, I said, “Neither have I, now that you mention it.”

With a chuckle that I knew well of old, William changed mood. “So just where are we going this time, Sage Merlin?”

“To a little place called Dürnstein. Leopold has a great castle there, where he will secure his prisoner for the present.”

“Why should we go there? To do what?”

“I have to tell him that I know how we can rescue him! I only thought of it when I was already on my way to Leopold’s shabby palace. I shall have to hurry back to England and collect the necessary enchantments, also a few helpers. And I am hoping that you can acquire some horses at Dürnstein, and that we will travel homeward together.”

“There are better horse markets here in Erdberg, surely?” he protested. Yes, there were, and we were abandoning the poor, maltreated mounts that had brought us there. They were no longer worth much, but our saddles and other tack were.

“But we should still have the problem of crossing the river, and the boat will get us to Dürnstein much faster.”

He gave up arguing at that point, because he could guess that I was foreseeing, being guided by Myrddin Wyllt.

During the night, the wind changed, as I had said it would. Downstream from Vienna the Danube is a moving lake, but upstream it is a well-behaved river, very wide, but confined within clearly defined banks. Its valley is likewise extremely broad, as you would expect. Our boat boasted a crew of six, three of them being owner-brothers. They would carry passengers as well as cargo, charging them by the day, for progress depended mostly on the wind, and also to some extent on the height of the river. At that time of year the water was low, the current slow, and the wind freezingly strong, but blowing out of the northeast. Consequently, we made very good time all the way to Dürnstein, arriving near to dusk. I spent the day strumming on my new gittern and trying to remember all the minstrel-type songs I could recall. I was seriously out of practice.

The hamlet of Dürnstein is on the northern bank, but is as close to negligible as anywhere can be. Its interest to me was the mighty fortress that stands high on the valley wall above it. The Danube bends there, giving the lookouts a fine view to both south and east. There was no real inn, but we were directed to a cottage that would take in boarders. We had to sleep on the floor, but only after being served an excellent supper. We rolled up in our blankets by the light of the fire’s last embers.

“So what do we do tomorrow, other than break into that castle?” William demanded.

“I win my way in there with my charming smile and lovable personality. You stay on here and celebrate Christmas with the inhabitants. You also buy horses for us. Four, I think, would—” For a moment I sensed the William of my youth, the monster eager to pounce. “Here? Where do I find those in a pocket-sized cesspit like this, you Saxon nitwit? I could count the houses in Dürnstein on the fingers of one foot.”

“I have no idea where,” I admitted. “That has not been revealed to me, but since the day I discovered that you could read and write Latin, I have never known you to fail me, William Legier, you old fraud. If I told you to fly, you probably would. Look after my packsack until I return, please. St. Stephen’s Day is a big celebration here, it seems, but I will rejoin you on the day after—St. John’s Day—and then we will ride off to England.”

“This is devils’ talk,” William growled. He rolled over and went to sleep.

The trail up to the castle gate was long and steep. There were hints of snow in the air, but exercise and my new cloak kept me warm in the bitter wind. I arrived at the gate and humbly asked if a minstrel might be allowed to brighten the festivities. My foresight had told me that I would be accepted into Dürnstein Castle, and minstrels are always welcome over Christmas. Richard would be comforted to see that his whereabouts were known to at least one friend, and my offer of an eventual rescue ought to cheer him up.

I was passed to a steward and taken to be inspected by the lady of the castle, known as Hunde. She was large, intimidating, and harassed in the midst of the kitchens, arranging for the feast to come. She frowned at my accent, and demanded to know where I was from.

“Picardy, my lady. I am on my way home from the Holy Land.”

“Huh! Another of those? Let me hear something.”

I unwrapped my gittern and hastily tuned it. Then I played a verse. Music is international, but my repertoire of Austrian songs was scarcely greater than my experience of pearl diving. She nodded impatiently and gave me her blessing. So I had food and shelter for the next couple of weeks, had I needed that much. My only risk now was that I might be recognized by someone from Leopold’s palace, possibly even the duke himself, accompanying Richard when he was brought to Dürnstein. Again, I gave my name as Blondel, although later I realized that I should have thought up a new nom de guerre.

The castle was huge, so I found an off-duty man-at-arms who would show me around in return for the latest tidings, for minstrels are the gossip carriers of the world. I told him that the word in Vienna was that the English king had been captured. He said that this was excellent news. When I inquired why, I learned that he had accompanied the castellan, Ministerial Hadmar von Kuenring, when he went to the Holy Land with his liege, Duke Leopold. Richard, in Dürnstein’s opinion, was an arrogant thief who deserved to rot in jail, or worse.

I was most happy to be shown a place where I could wash properly for the first time in much too long. I would sleep in the hall, of course, with the foot soldiers and unmarried knights, but I was assured that good straw pallets were available for all. I was required to play at midday dinner, but I was fed amply afterward, in the kitchen.

The ministerial himself sent for me later. His title implies a nobleman who is vassal to a duke, a rank not much different from my barony. Hadmar von Kuenring was a big, coarse-featured man with a bullying manner, but I had already learned that his men respected him. He demanded to know where I had come from.

I told him Vienna and the tale of Richard’s capture, which pleased him.

And before that? Originally from Picardy, I said, to justify my horrible accent. It is always best to stay as close to the truth as one’s interests allow, so I told him most recently from Outremer.

Europe must be swarming with men returning from the crusade, but perhaps he saw the possible connection with Richard, for he frowned suspiciously. “What building guards the harbor at Acre?”

“The Tower of Flies, my lord.” Right answer.

Later that day I met another minstrel who had found Christmas sanctuary in Dürnstein. He was much younger than me, darkly handsome and quick witted. His name was Jehan de Tours, which meant that he was a subject of Richard in his honor as duke of Touraine. That was no guarantee of his loyalty, though, for Richard as a ruler was more respected than loved and it was less than four years since he and Philip had been ravaging those lands to take them away from King Henry.

Jehan seemed somewhat puzzled when he heard my nom de guerre, and for a moment I feared that he was going to denounce me as a fraud, but he didn’t, neither then nor later. Had he ever met the real Blondel he must have known that I was too old, but perhaps he had merely seen him from a distance and had possibly heard him sing. My accent was all wrong, of course, especially because we were speaking French and I spoke Anglicized Norman French, which was like no other version, but my hair was the right color for me to be called Blondel. Whatever he thought, Jehan accepted me and we set to work planning a partnership repertoire. He was very good at romantic ballads, and also on comic jingles.

We had quite enough work to do. The castle chaplain recruited us to sing at mass, of course, and we had to rehearse for that over the next couple of days. His deacon was young and jovial, and was to double as master of the revels for the festivities.

Near dusk on Christmas Eve, Richard the Lionheart arrived in Dürnstein under guard. I stayed well back in the shadows as he was marched in. He looked haggard—understandably so after a two-day ride from Vienna, but he was warmly dressed now and held his head high. To my great relief, Duke Leopold had sent him, not brought him, and I recognized none of the escort from my time in Vienna.

Christmas Day began with mass, held in the great hall itself so that everyone could attend, not in the ice-cold little chapel. After that, Jehan and I went off to do some more rehearsing for the dinner entertainment. In addition to our singing, there would also be performances by jugglers and acrobats recruited from the younger members of the staff and guard. If Richard were present, he would see me and know that he had not been forgotten. If he were left in his cell, I would try to slip away and speak to him during the meal.

I knew which I expected, though, for I had foreseen his presence at the banquet ages ago, and Myrddin had never let me down yet. Either Ministerial Hadmar or Fraulein Kuenring— or possibly both—had been unable to resist the temptation to entertain a king at their table. Quite possibly Richard had given them his parole, but there he was, up at the high table between them, being charming as no other deadly killer could be. To my practiced healer’s eye, he still looked feverish, but I thought he was close to enjoying himself. After the last couple of weeks, food, warmth, and rest were great medications.

The enormous Yule log blazed on the hearth, and the hall was garlanded with greenery, especially holly with its brilliant red berries.

When my first turn to perform solo came along, I chose a song I had been taught by its composer, L’amours dont sui espris.

About the third line, I saw Richard’s head swing around, so I did not look at him any more. When I had finished, the applause was scanty, for very few present would have understood the words or appreciated the subtle melody, but I knew I had passed my message, even if I had butchered the song.

I went back to the performers’ table, where the jugglers were getting ready to perform and Jehan was busily chewing roast boar. He gave me a quizzical glance.

“That’s a new one to me. Who wrote it, do you know?”

“Blondel de . . . I mean, I did. God’s legs!”

He grinned.

“Listen!” I whispered. “All those stories about Richard are false! They’re lies spread by the king of France, who broke his oath and sailed away. They are not true!”

“And the sorcerer with the limp, Durwin of Pipewell? He’s not Merlin Redux?”

“If he is, I’ll turn you into a slug!”

Jehan grinned again and reached for the beer. “My father fought under Richard. He would certainly agree with you.”

“What’s your father’s name? I’ll ask Richard about him if I get a chance.”

I had known for days that I would make my way to Richard’s cell that night to tell him that I could rescue him, but not right away. I even knew how he was going to react—first with disapproval because flight would give his enemies an excuse to kill him, then with reluctant agreement, because Philip and John must still be conspiring to steal his empire. I also knew that this visit was going to be dangerous, but Myrddin Wyllt had never let me down yet.

At last the host and hostess left the hall, together with their royal guest and his armed escort. Servants began snuffing candles and handing out sleeping pallets. I took one and spread it close by one of the doors, where constant streams of men were passing by on their way to or from the privies. I joined in and on the way back, deliberately took a wrong turning.

My tour of the castle had given me a fairly good idea of places where a noble prisoner would be held, and the most likely was the north tower, certainly not in one of the dungeons. I had not been shown inside that tower, but my hunch was confirmed when I heard guttural von Kuenring himself, stumping and grumbling his way down a spiral staircase that I was about to climb. I stepped into a shady corner, facing inward, and whispered Hic non sum. He and his companions went by without seeing me, growling in their version of German.

Now I had the problem of climbing that same staircase in the dark. The spiral wound to my right, which is customary in castles, so that an intruding swordsman, if right-handed, is at a disadvantage compared to a right-handed defender above him. I was no swordsman, but I had an iron lift on my right foot, so I had to go slowly and move with care. There was no banister, just a rope dangling around the newel axis to provide a questionable handhold. But that rope probably saved my life. As I ran my grip up it, preparatory to taking another step, I felt a sudden chill and pulled my hand down again fast. It tingled madly with pins-and-needles.

Cautious exploration told me that there was a horizontal warding across the shaft, like an invisible trap door. I do not know what would have happened had I penetrated that plane with my head, but even a mild surprise could easily have caused me to lose my balance and fall.

Or it might have just killed me outright. There must be a password, but I did not know it and I lacked a spell to disable the ward. So Duke Leopold employed sorcerers, too? I should not have been surprised.

I turned around, and went down, finding my way back to the hall without further trouble. My ambition to rescue my king would require further thought and probably much more magical ammunition. In the event, I never even tried, because he was moved from place to place so often during his captivity that it would have been impossible to plan the operation.

If Leopold’s enchanter was present in the castle, he or she made no attempt to assault me or even make contact. Most likely he or she was being kept close to the royal prisoner and the trap I had encountered was a permanent feature of the castle. But my visit to Dürnstein had taught me one important lesson—the Myrddin Wyllt was not infallible. Other magic could block it. As the Church insisted, prophecies could never be certain, because then they would limit the powers of God.

St. Stephen’s day was quieter than Christmas, with many people nursing headaches or vengeful intestines, but Jehan and I were still expected to provide entertainment, because it was a local feast day. When the gate was opened at sunrise of December 27^th, I departed, wrapped up in my cloak against the bone-cracking cold.