“Your feelings do not come to bear?”
“Not in any case, my lord. They never have.”
William could see that. He was coming to understand something else, too– when Loxbeare spoke, there was no boastfulness. Either he was being modest, or he was simply unwilling to elaborate on their reputation. William suspected it was the latter; assassins usually did not live long if they bragged over their accomplishments. He understood their position all too well.
Therefore, he leaned forward on the old table, motioning the knights nearer. For what he was about to say, he didn’t want to shout. As the three men leaned forward to listen, William eyed Gart, unspoken words passing between them. Gart would keep an eye out for anyone trying to listen to their conversation. As Gart sat back in his chair, far enough to keep on the alert but still close enough to hear the conversation, William began.
“You will answer me truthfully, in all things, or I shall send you back to the Lords of Baux without hesitation,” he said in a tone that suggested utter, complete compliance. “I’ve no time for foolishness or lies. Do you understand?”
The three men nodded.
“Swear upon your honor,” William said.
They did, in unison, and William continued. “I understand that you had an encounter with Lothar on your return from The Levant. Confirm this to me.”
Lothar.Sitting on the right hand of The Marshal, the mere mention of the name caused Maxton to stiffen somewhat. He knew that William was referring to the pope by his birth name–Lothario. Rather than address the man by his proper title, hewas using a casual reference and Maxton knew it was because of the ongoing war between the pope and the King of England. There was little to no respect there, long gone to dust in the constant embattlement between John and the Catholic Church.
Even so, now that the name of the Holy Father had been brought forth, the light of why he and Achilles and Kress had been ransomed by William and Eleanor of Aquitaine was beginning to flicker in Maxton’s mind, and not in a good way. In truth, perhaps he’d always suspected, but now, he was receiving confirmation of it.
There was only one explanation– that they knew of the offer made from the Holy Father to the Executioner Knights. Maxton didn’t know how they knew, but they did. He found his eyes flicking to Gart as the man sat there, alert and silent. But Gart wasn’t looking at him and Maxton began to grow suspicious; perhaps Gart had told The Marshal, but how did Gart find out about the offer? Maxton had never told him and on their trip home from Baux, the subject of the Lateran Palace, or the pope, or anything else religious had never really come up. Perhaps, that was because Gart had already known, and he’d been leading the three knights home to face an interrogation about it.
That had to be it.
Maxton was instantly on his guard.
“I will confirm it,” he said after a moment. “But if you know that, then you also know that the very encounter was the reason we were prisoners of the Lords of Baux.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
Maxton wasn’t comfortable speaking about a situation that had impacted him and his friends intensely, but he had little choice. His suspicions were growing, and he was coming to wonder if there weren’t a hundred crown troops outside of the tavern, all of them awaiting a signal from The Marshal to come charging in and puncture him to death. If William knew he’dmet with the pope, then he probably knew why. Even though the offer had been made in the strictest confidence, something like that wouldn’t remain a secret forever. Men talked.
With that thought lingering on his mind, Maxton proceeded carefully, trying not to look like a man who was pleading his case.
But he was.
“Much as you have heard of our reputation, so had the Holy Father,” he said, his voice so low that it was coming out as a growling whisper. “When we reached Rome on our journey back to England, an Italian knight we had become acquainted with during our time in The Levant spoke of a papal directive of a most secretive kind. It would seem that the knight had a cousin in the Lateran Palace, and the Holy Father had been looking for good English knights for a special mission. Our friend, the Italian knight, had mentioned what he knew of us to his cousin, who in turn told the Holy Father. We were evidently what the Holy Father was looking for, and we were brought to the Lateran Palace. When we were deemed trustworthy, we met with the Holy Father himself.”
William was listening intently. “Just like that? Was it so easy, then, to have an audience with Lothar?”
Maxton’s lips twitched with an ironic smile. “Nay, it was not so easy as all that,” he said. “We spent months in Rome, being seduced by those in the Lateran Palace and all they could provide us. Wine and women, and even money. We lived like kings. When it was determined we were loyal enough to the Holy Father, we were summoned to speak with him. But it took time.”
William sighed faintly, digesting the situation. “Why did you remain, then? Purely for the fact that you were being spoiled with food and comfort?”
Maxton lifted his big shoulders. “Nay,” he said, “although I will admit that after the hell of The Levant, it was a welcomechange. We remained because we were intrigued by whispers of large sums of money and property that the Holy Father was willing to pay for a most important task. Call it a mercenary intention if you must, but we had a purpose in remaining. It wasn’t simply hedonism.”
William’s eyes glittered as he looked at him. “All men have a mercenary heart,” he said. “It is the one thing every man has in common, if nothing else. So… you remained where you were pampered and spoiled, waiting for an offer of a task with great rewards. When you finally met with Lothar, what did he ask of you?”
Maxton didn’t hesitate. “To kill the king.”
“John?”
“Aye.”
“And you refused?”
Maxton snorted. “That was why you found us in the possession of the Lords of Baux,” he said. “We refused to assassinate our own king and the Holy Father took exception to that. So that his offer to us would not become public knowledge, he threw us into the vault and then sold us off to the Lords of Baux, who had never made it clear what they intended to do with us. The garrison commander at Baux-de-Provence, who became friendly with us because he hated his lord with a passion, told us that we were to be ransomed back to our families, but that never materialized.”
William absorbed what he was being told. It was everything Gart had told him and more. “Did Lothar tell youwhyhe wanted John removed?”
