Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem

June 1272

When the hell was Prince Edward going to give up this absurd Crusade?

Richard de Claiborne, sole heir to the Earl of Dunsmore, gazed at the city of Acre spread out below. The hill upon which the English army encamped commanded a sweeping view of the sun-bleached buildings and dusty streets. Beyond lay the great expanse of sapphire that was the Mediterranean sea.

A breeze off the water, so rare this time of day, stirred across the camp. The hair on the back of his neck prickled inexplicably.

From air pregnant with silence, an explosion of sound erupted. The tent walls rippled. The crash of furniture and the muffled grunts of men hung in the oppressive stillness.

Richard’s heart leapt in his throat as he bolted for the opening. He threw a prayer to the heavens, begging God to take him instead of Prince Edward, and darted inside.

A turbaned man struggled in a death embrace with the heir to the English throne. Blood spattered the two mens’ clothes, a knife flashing between them as each tried to wrest it from the other. A parchment lay on the floor, the seal broken, forgotten in the fight. Cushions were scattered wildly, chairs upended, the table toppled.

The Saracen forced Edward backwards, the knife perilously close to the Prince’s throat.

Richard lunged. Grabbing the assassin, he jerked him off Edward and wrapped an arm around the man’s neck, yanking the Saracen’s chin toward him with his free hand.

One clean jerk, and it would snap.

Edward seized the man’s wrist, wrenching the dagger free with his remaining strength. The arm of Edward’s tunic lay open, slashed. Blood spurted from a deep gash that ran from his elbow to his wrist. He sank to his knees.

“Who sent you?” Richard demanded, twisting the assassin’s neck until his veins bulged. The man gave a strangled laugh, babbling in Arabic.

Richard tightened his grip.

“Sultan Baibars of Egypt!” the man spat in thickly accented French.

Edward swayed. “There is no honor in Crusading anymore. Saladin sent a horse to my great-uncle, Coeur de Lion, during the Battle of Jaffa, when his was cut from beneath him, so much did Saladin admire him for fighting a hopeless battle . . .” The Prince’s eyes were glazed, his voice soft.

The assassin laughed. “He is a dead man . . . the blade is poisoned.”

Jesú, no! Richard felt as if the earth were dropping from beneath his feet. Edward Plantagenet, the man who would be England’s king, the greatest warrior-king since Richard the Lion Heart, could not die!

Edward looked up, his eyes focusing on the messenger. With a swift movement, he drove the dagger upward into the man’s gut.

Startled, Richard let the infidel fall in a heap. The man jerked convulsively, blood gurgling in his throat and spilling from his mouth, before he was still.

Too late, men swarmed into the tent, voices raised in confusion. A woman screamed. Princess Eleanor rushed to her husband’s side, sobbing in her native Spanish.

“Send for a doctor!” Richard cried, yanking a white linen cloth from beneath the table.

He wound it around Edward’s arm while Eleanor held her husband’s head, stroking his hair and crying. She did not seem to notice the crimson stain seeping into the rich silk fabric of her dress.

Edward struggled to get up.

“Rest, Highness,” Richard said, pushing him back.

“You saved me, de Claiborne. I will not forget it, will make you the most powerful earl in the realm when I am king.” His voice was a whisper as he grasped Richard’s sleeve.

Richard nodded numbly, the assassin’s words echoing in his ears.

The blade is poisoned . . .

---

Richard entered the Prince’s tent quietly. ’Twas three days since the attack. The sight that greeted him made him want to recoil in horror.

Edward was no longer the glorious Plantagenet prince, shining brighter than any star in the heavens, but a frail man lying close to death. Fever burned on his brow, his eyes blackened pits in his gaunt face. His arm swelled grotesquely out of proportion to the rest of his body.

Eleanor held his hand, weeping softly. Physicians hovered at the end of the bed, their voices but a murmur in Richard’s ears.

Several of Edward’s intimates, men of rank and power, sat nearby, glaring at Richard.

His heart pounded in his breast. Dunsmore was but a petty earldom when compared with the might of Gloucester or Richmond.

“Come,” Edward rasped.

Richard started forward slowly. “Highness,” he said, kneeling at Edward’s bedside.

“Even the Moor surgeon does not know the poison used,” Edward said, motioning feebly to the knot of men. “I am to die in God’s very bosom it seems.”

A small sob escaped the Princess.

Richard could not move, could not speak. He stared at the bloated hand lying only inches from his face.

“You tried to save me, my friend. God will not forget that. Eleanor will that see my father rewards you when you return to England.”

“Highness?” the Moor ventured, sliding into view next to Richard.

“Aye?”

“There is perhaps a chance. If I were to cut away the decaying flesh, it might stop the poison from spreading. ’Twill be painful—”

“I counsel against it, Your Highness.” Another doctor, one of Edward’s own, stepped forward. “’Tis heathen and cannot possibly work!”

“What say you, Richard?” Edward asked.

Richard turned to the Moor. “’Tis the only chance?”

“He will certainly die otherwise . . . and he may die anyway.”

“’Tis your decision, Highness, but if there is no other option . . .”

“Do it then,” Edward commanded. “Stay with me, Richard.”

“Aye, Your Highness.”

“Eleanor, love, you must go. I cannot bear your tears. And take these wet nurses with you,” he added, casting a scathing look at the anxious lords.

“Nay, Edward, I want to stay with you,” she sobbed.

He motioned to the two knights standing in the door. They came forward and tried to lead Eleanor from his bedside.

She screamed. The knights turned helpless faces on their future king. His jaw clenched, but he nodded. They picked up the screaming princess and dragged her, kicking and scratching, from the tent.

Richard could feel the enmity flowing from the barons as they filed out. Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, was only six years older than Richard, and yet even at eight and twenty, Red Gilbert was the most powerful baron in all of England. His face was every bit as red as his hair as he aimed a look of fierce hatred at Richard before disappearing through the flap.

The doctor finished heating the knife, then gave the Prince a piece of wood to bite upon.

“If you value your lives, do not interfere,” Edward said to the other physicians. He looked at Richard, his blue eyes suddenly grim. “Pray for me, my friend.”

Richard nodded.

At the first touch of the hot blade, Edward passed out. The smell of charred flesh filled the tent. Richard swallowed the bile rising in his throat, prayers tumbling over one another in his mind as he sought to ignore what was happening before his eyes.

“It is done,” the physician said at last.

“Will he live?” Richard asked.

The Moor shrugged his shoulders. “’Tis in Allah’s hands now. We can only wait and see.”

Richard squeezed his eyes shut. It was two years since Prince Edward and his army of gallant one-thousand had sailed from England.

The voyage had been leisurely. They’d made port in Aquitaine and Brittany, Lisbon and Tangier, Rome and Sicily. They’d traversed the Greek Isles; Corfu, Crete, Rhodes, where the sun was blistering and the sands bleached white, and where the water shone vibrant turquoise.

To pass the long days at sea, Richard worked beside the ship’s men, honing his body to razor-sharpness. It did not matter that he was an earl’s son and would one day be an earl himself. To simply breathe the tang of the salt-drenched air, to feel the sun’s kiss on his skin, to know the sensation of back-breaking work were the things he needed to keep his energy focused.

His visions of glory had not dampened in the one and a half year journey to the hot and dusty land of Christ. He’d set foot upon the hallowed ground of Outremer determined to turn the infidels to God and to wrest the birthplace of Christ from their savage hands.

But, in the months he’d been here, his conviction had seeped away, leached from his body by the scorching Mediterranean sun. Infidels and Christians mingled freely in the streets of Acre and Jerusalem, and the Christians did not seem gladdened to see the English knights who would once again attempt to conquer the heathens. Indeed, the English army’s victories at Nazareth and Haifa failed to bring any aid from the knights of Christendom.

Gallantly, Edward had struggled on, refusing to allow the dwindling numbers of his army and the lack of reinforcements to discourage him. King Henry sent paltry excuses where he had once sent vast sums of money.

And now it had all come down to this. Richard opened his eyes to gaze at the unconscious man in front of him. He didn’t believe in anything anymore -- anything except this man.

“I swear upon my honor that if you live, I will never desert your cause, whatever it may be,” he whispered fiercely.

---

Edward recovered quickly, although he remained weak for some time, spending the lengthening days of summer resting in his tent. Sultan Baibars, seeing he could not rid himself of the Prince so easily, agreed to a ten-year truce. The army worked diligently to prepare the ships for the return voyage to England.

The afternoon was sultry as usual, and Richard reclined on a cushion, sipping a cup of chilled wine. He was a constant companion of Edward’s now. The Prince welcomed him into the royal circle enthusiastically, frequently eschewing the company of his other lords. Richard knew it did not endear him to the powerful barons to be so favored by the next King of England.

“When I am king, I intend to subjugate Wales and Scotland,” Edward was saying. “One island, one kingdom. Prince Llywelyn will pay for tricking my father into giving him dominion in Wales whilst my father was Simon de Montfort’s prisoner.”

“Welsh savages have no honor,” Richard repeated by rote. He stroked his short beard with a bronzed hand. The months spent beneath the sweltering eastern sun had burnished his skin to a copper so deep it would never come out.

“You grew up in the March. What do you think Llywelyn’s weakness is?”

“His chieftains fight amongst themselves constantly. Not all of them support him. My father is friendly with Gruffydd ap Gwynwynwyn, lord of Powys. There is no love lost between Gruffydd and Llywelyn, and Gruffydd is his most powerful vassal.”

Edward toyed with his cup. “I cannot declare open war on Prince Llywelyn, but if what you say is true, an opportunity is bound to arise that I can use to my advantage.” His eyes took on a zealous light. “You must help me, Richard. I want you to lead the Marcher lords. Gilbert is a poor choice. He changed sides twice during the Barons’ Revolt. I cannot entrust men such as that with the good of the realm.”

Richard reeled. Jesú, Gloucester! “Red Gilbert holds more lands than my father. He owes the crown more rents than any other in the kingdom! How can you do it?”

Edward smiled a deadly smile. “When I am king, none will challenge my authority as they do my father’s. By elevating you, the others will see their positions are not so permanent as they might think.”

Richard’s hand strayed to his sword hilt. “To think my father did not want me to come with you.”

Edward laughed suddenly. “Aye, my friend, we have much in common. My father begged me not to leave England. But, we do what we must, eh?”

“Aye, we do what we must.” Mayhap now, his father would admit he’d been right to go. Just because the old earl had never gotten over the death of Richard’s mother was no reason to always try and keep his son by his side.

A messenger appeared in the open flap of the tent. He handed missives to Edward, bowing deeply before being dismissed with a nod.

“I will leave you now,” Richard said, rising.

“Nay, nay. ’Twill only take a moment.”

Richard sank onto the cushions. Edward broke the seal on the first document and poured over the contents. He paused, raising his eyes to Richard briefly, before continuing.

Edward cast the letter aside and passed a hand over his face. “’Tis from my mother.”

“Is King Henry . . .?”

“Nay, he is ill, but the doctors think he will not die yet. I . . . I do not know how to tell you,” Edward said, his blue eyes searching Richard’s face.

Richard sat up. “What?” he asked, apprehension washing over him.

“Your father was killed in a border skirmish, the beginning of spring. I am sorry.”

Richard closed his eyes. God’s blood, almost three months! Guilt stabbed through him, sharp and cold. His father had feared for his life, and now he was the one dead. And Richard hadn’t been there.

He swallowed the painful lump in his throat. Despite the victory he’d just gained, he’d failed his father miserably. William de Claiborne would never know what his son had achieved.

Hot tears pressed against his eyelids, begging to spill free. He would not let them. When he was only seven, and his father’s mournful wails echoed through Claiborne castle after a night of drinking and drowning in memories of his dead wife, Richard had wiped away his own tears and sworn never to cry again. It was a vow he’d never broken.

“How did it happen?” he asked quietly. His father had ridden the border for years. It was hard to believe the Welsh had finally beaten him.

“Ambush, it seems. One survivor, and he swears it was Llywelyn.”

Richard clenched his teeth so hard it made his jaw hurt. Goddamn Welsh savage! In that moment, a hatred so intense was born that his first thought was to shrink from it, to hide from its brilliant white-hot glare. But he embraced it instead, locking it into the depths of his heart and finding comfort in it.

Prince Llywelyn would pay dearly.