I am no fool. I had the evidence, and I assembled it. He was loading us for Venice, not Rhodes.
Let me tell you, I prefer a fight to a debate. But I had promised the legate.
I had perhaps thirty slow steps in which to marshal my arguments and make a case. And the first choice was whether to allow myself to be mastered by anger, or to be all sweet reason. The anger was right there, boiling together with the injustice of Emile’s behaviour, the perfidy of the king, d’Herblay’s cowardice, my fear of Cambrai’s long arm, my own fatigue and black mood. Anger was easy.
There are moments in life that are as definite as battle. As stark. There are moments when you see things as if they were outlined in scarlet, when truth is illuminated, when a man’s character changes because he understands something heretofore hidden, for good or ill. We remember with pleasure those moments that are achievements of some goal: the wife, the treasure, the golden spurs, the Emperor’s sword. But in our secret mind we know that some of the red letters that mark our days were not achievements but discoveries. I have known a good woman ruined by another woman’s perfidy, ruined to dissipation by a relentless cynicism. I have seen one man turned faithless by another man’s bad faith, accidentally discovered.
In one brilliant flash as I stepped aboard and crossed myself to the crucifix at the stern, I saw that anger would serve no purpose whatever in this debate. And that, further, my anger was a bent, nicked sword in any debate. I can’t tell you by what train I arrived at this conclusion, but I saw it. This was one conversation in which I must not be governed by my black mood.
Like a man approaching a fight in the lists, I examined my opponent and tried to find an attack that would carry his conviction. That he had given his word? That our victory needed to be known on Rhodes?
Like many young men entering unequal combats, I had not prepared my attack when I entered his distance. But at least I knew the manner of my own defence, and had my first feint, as it were, prepared.
I bowed, touching my knee to the deck. ‘My lord summoned me?’ I said.
Lord Contarini inclined his head. I knew he liked me. ‘I need to talk to you on a serious matter,’ he said, a little too portentously.
In a fight, you can read an opponent in a hundred little things. A man may lean back slightly when you present your blade at his eyes – that little flinch reveals everything. Lord Contarini’s voice and his first words told me that he was not happy in his own mind with the choice he had made. And that was an opening.
‘I see we are loading for Venice,’ I said bluntly. I neither smiled nor frowned – my voice was steady.
He broke his eyes away from mine. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is necessary.’
I neither nodded nor frowned. ‘It is my duty, my lord, to tell you that your action will force the cancellation of the crusade.’
His head snapped around. Had it been a fight, I had just landed a blow.
I admired him, and one of his most admirable qualities was that his age rendered him immune from the petty ambitions that ruled the rest of us. But I had him. Having won a great victory, he was chained to the good opinion of the world.
He glared at me. ‘Venice must be informed immediately if this victory is to be followed up. And perhaps this sea fight is as great a victory as the crusade was ever expected to win.’
‘The crusade is intended to take Jerusalem,’ I said.
‘With six thousand men?’ asked the admiral. ‘Spare me your pious crap, Sir Knight.’
I bowed and clamped down on my temper. ‘My lord, I gave my solemn word to the legate that I would return to him at Rhodes – and I believe you did the same.’