The Long Sword by Christian Cameron Read Free Book Online

political pie. Related to half the crowned heads of Europe, he had been raised with the King of Aragon, and he intended to make himself Grand Master.
    I see you both smile. Well, he is Grand Master, is he not? Forty years and more, the order was the servant of the Pope and the Doge of Genoa, eh? However much the truth hurts, let us face it. And the Catalans and the Aragonese had had enough.
    But that’s another story. Suffice it to say that I sat as a belted knight and a volunteer and watched di Heredia, who had once chased me out of Provençe when he was the papal commander and I was a mere routier, a brigand. I might have hated him for that, or for his avarice and ambition, which contrasted so sharply with Father Pierre’s saintliness. But di Heredia was a fine soldier, a good knight, and it was he who had made the decision to accept me into the Order. Knowing of my past.
    Enough digression. Di Heredia twirled his moustache – he was very much the Spanish grandee – and smiled, leaning one elbow on a great table that clerks used to cast accounts.
    ‘Now the legate will be you ,’ he said, smiling at Father Pierre.
    Father Pierre made a face. ‘I have no worldly interest,’ he said. ‘No one will make me the most powerful man on the Crusade, nor, I think, am I fit for the role. I would prefer to be the legate’s chaplain, and try and keep him to humility and God’s purpose. If a crusade is ever God’s purpose.’
    At this, Fra Peter and di Heredia both winced.
    But di Heredia leaned forward, his dark eyes twinkling. ‘I have the interest ,’ he said. ‘My earthly king and your friend the Pope have the interest .’ He sat back. ‘Talleyrand was too powerful and too French. You are everyone’s priest. Will you accept?’
    Father Pierre leaned back and thrust out his jaw. ‘With King John and Talleyrand both dead, surely the Pope will simply cancel the Passagium Generale . Or allow it to expire.’
    Fra Peter glanced at me. ‘Indeed, my lords. In England last year, the Prior there told me, quite frankly, that King Edward saw the entire crusade to be a false emprise. A mummer’s play to hide the use of papal funds to pay the King of France’s ransom.’
    I remembered the trip to England – a very happy time for me, as I have said. Being young and full of myself, and my sister, I’d completely missed Fra Peter’s deep disquiet. Indeed, one of the most difficult aspects of serving the Order was, and is, the divided loyalties. Fra Peter was a good Englishman. And to be told by his immediate superior, the Prior of England, that the King of England saw the crusade as a crass political manoeuvre to support the crown of France – by God, that must have hurt.
    Father Pierre smiled, at me, of all people. ‘I, too, have heard this. And perhaps it was true, although I assure you, my friends in Christ, that God moves men in mysterious ways, and that a Passagium Generale declared falsely to support the King of France might, in the end, serve God’s will. Do you doubt it?’
    Di Heredia nodded and twirled his moustaches again. ‘That’s what I hoped that you would say. I will suggest that the Pope appoint Peter of Cyprus to command the expedition, and you, my good and worthy priest, to be papal legate.’
    Father Pierre’s mild blue eyes met di Heredia’s falcon’s glance. ‘As long as you and your king and the Pope understand that I have no higher interest than the will of Christ on earth, so be it,’ he said. ‘But I am not the man to listen to the Doge of Venice or the King of Aragon’s interests.’
    Di Heredia made a sound of annoyance and twirled his moustaches again.
    Father Pierre looked around, for a moment more like an eagle than a dove. ‘Why now, though? When to all, the crusade seems dead?’ His eyes rested on Fra Peter’s. ‘Again?’
    Di Heredia laughed. ‘Sometimes, Excellence, you are the merest child to the politics of the rotten fruit that surrounds you. Listen. The crusade was only