Simon Hawke
Ivanhoe Gambit
Their lives took a turn for the better when the orphans were taken in by an abbot who treated them kindly and taught them how to read, giving them what little education both possessed. The demands he made on her young body did not seem too much to give him in return. When he began to make the same demands upon Marcel, Andre decided it was time to leave.
It was very shortly after that that she took to passing as a boy. It made things easier, although not by very much. They traveled constantly, stealing what they could to see them through. They both learned how to fight and they survived, although the odds against them were incalculable. Then they met up with Sir Giles.
Andre never knew Sir Giles' full name. Giles, himself, was no longer certain what it was. A knight errant who had taken one blow to the head too many, Giles was addle-brained without any hope of recovery. He imagined himself to be upon a quest and, indeed, when he had set out upon his journey from wherever it was he came, he may have had some purpose in mind, but he could no longer remember what it was. Though he was a lost soul, Giles was a gentle man who had brief periods of relative lucidity interspersed with fugue states. He was a sad knight, barely able to take care of himself. Frequently, he forgot to eat and he was given to experiencing extremely painful headaches. In spite of this, however, he was supremely functional when it came to exercising his fighting prowess. It was as though his body could remember what his mind could not. Whenever it came to practicing his knightly art or speaking of it, something inside him clicked and, for a time, he was almost normal.
He had not seen through Andre's deception and he took her and Marcel at face value as two orphaned boys out on their own. They touched a chord of sympathy within him and he made them his squires and proceeded to instruct them. It was a touching, symbiotic relationship. They took care of him, and he gave them protection. When it came to instructing his two young squires in the art of combat, Giles was a relentless taskmaster. He transferred the feverish intensity with which he sought to grasp his past into his teaching and he rode them hard. Marcel, a delicate young boy, was ill suited to such work and he pleaded with his sister to run away from Giles; but even then, Andre understood that the knowledge being imparted to them had no price and that it was an opportunity that would never come again.
Although Marcel did not display much of an aptitude for knightly skills, Andre responded to the training well and quickly. She learned how to control a horse while in full armor, though Giles' armor was extremely large on her and she could barely move about inside it without his assistance. She learned how to use a crossbow, how to fight with a broadsword, which she had not even been able to lift at first. She was almost constantly in pain from the demands placed on her young and undeveloped muscles, but she was possessed of intense determination. As time passed and she grew, her muscles became stronger. She became concerned when she noticed that she was beginning to develop as a woman, but the fact that she was never meant to be voluptuous, coupled with the response of her muscles to the highly intense training, resulted in her developing a body that aided her in her deception. Her breasts, though firm, were small and easily, if uncomfortably, concealed. Her shoulders, though not as broad as those of many men, were nevertheless much broader than the standards of beauty dictated for women. Her arms were large for a woman and her legs did not have the coltish slimness indicative of indolence. Where women of the day were soft, Andre was hard. Where their skin was smooth, Andre's was rough. In short, as a woman, Andre de la Croix was too mannish to attract very many men and, indeed, she would have intimidated them. But in the aspect of a man, she gave the impression of possessing a studied, languid grace, a trim and compact body and a youthful prettiness that gave her a very boyish quality and frequently made others underestimate her.
When Giles succumbed to pneumonia, Andre and Marcel buried him in the forest and Andre took his horse and arms for her own. She applied the skills that Giles had taught her and improved upon them, selling her services to anyone who could afford to pay. In time, she was able to improve upon Giles' ill-fitting armor by commissioning an armorer to craft a suit especially for her. There were many knights involved in the Crusades and they proclaimed this by wearing the cross upon their chests and shields. Andre instructed her armorer to fashion a cross as a device for her, as well, only to make it different from those worn by the Crusaders. The armorer gave her a fleury cross and reversed the colors of the Crusaders from red on white to white on red and the red knight, Andre de la Croix, was born.
As she stood outside upon the parapet, feeling the cool evening breeze upon her face, Andre considered the unlikely part that fate had chosen her to play in the scheme of things.
She wished she understood more about the intrigue she was involved in.
"It is time for us to talk," a voice said at her side.
She jerked, startled. She had been all alone upon the castle wall mere seconds ago and the hooded stranger had appeared at her side as if out of thin air. It was not the first time he had so surprised her.
"Would that I could learn to move so swiftly, or with such silence," she told him. "Where did you come from?"
"That need not concern you."
"What do you want, then?"
"I want you to perform a service for me. You will listen carefully and follow each of my commands to the letter. I will not tolerate refusal or failure on your part. You-"
"I am not one of your serfs," said Andre.
"You are bought and paid for."
"You have purchased my services, my lord, you have not purchased me. I care not if you are the rightful King of England or Jesus Christ, Himself; it is all the same to me. So long as I am paid, I will follow your instructions. It would serve you well to consider that I could as easily inform your brother of our dealings, should you become too inconvenient a paymaster."
"I don't doubt that you could burn the candle at both ends successfully," said the referee, "but I possess the means whereby you might be singed."
"You threaten me?"
"With exposure as a woman, yes."
Andre stiffened and her fingers moved toward the dagger in her belt.
"Yes, I know, but rest assured that your secret will be safe with me so long as you follow my instructions."
Moving with lightning speed, Andre drew the dagger from its sheath and stabbed at-but he was no longer there. Andre looked quickly from side to side, holding the dagger out in front of her. She was alone upon the parapet. Thinking that her intended victim might have fallen over, she leaned out over the edge of the wall to look down and-
— powerful hands pinned her down against the stone. If she struggled, she could be thrown over the edge in a moment. She froze, resigned to her fate.
"That was very foolish, de la Croix. Your life rests in the palm of my hand, do you understand me? I could kill you at any time. Any time at all. Now drop the knife." It spun away into the darkness.
"Better."
He let her up. She looked shaken. "Have I bound myself over to a sorcerer?" she said.
"You have bound yourself over to Richard of England." Andre shook her head.'' You are not Plantagenet.'' Irving smiled. "Perhaps not. But I will be. Now listen carefully, I have a task for you…"
5
The last day of the tournament was traditionally set aside for the melee, a mock battle staged for the benefit of the spectators. The melee held a great attraction for the masses, for it had all the elements of a real war. Once again, there was a great deal of milling about until Prince John showed up with his entourage, then the marshal began to organize things.