she said quietly, “for you’ve fought beside him for years. Tell me, André . . . what impelled him to make an act of atonement like that?”
“I think it was because of what Joachim told him, Madame. He said that the king is destined to fulfill those prophesies, that Almighty God will grant him victory over his enemies and glorify his name for all eternity. Naturally, such a prophesy gladdened the king’s heart, but I believe it caused him to search his soul, too. To be told that his deeds could bring about the salvation of mankind is both a great honor and a great burden. I think he wanted to be sure that he was worthy, and so he felt the need to cleanse himself of past sins.”
Eleanor was glad that she’d asked André, for his explanation made perfect sense to her. “Well,” she said with a smile, “he surely emerged as pure as one of the Almighty’s own lambs after such a public scourging of his soul.”
“Indeed, Madame.” André’s answering smile was bland, for not for the surety of his own soul would he have discussed Richard’s sins with his mother, even a mother as worldly as this one. Theirs was a friendship that went deeper than blood, for it had been forged on the battlefield, and he thought it likely that only Richard’s confessor knew more about his cousin’s vices than he did, for some he had witnessed, some he had shared, a few he had suspected, and others neither he nor Richard considered to be sins at all.
Turning away then to fetch Eleanor more wine, André found himself dwelling upon those questions that all true Christians must grapple with. He believed that he was a good son of the Church. But he did not understand why lust was so great a sin. Why must his faith be constantly at war with his flesh? He listened dutifully when priests warned that he must not lie with his wife in forbidden positions or on holy days or Sundays or during Lent, Advent, or Pentecost. He did not always follow those prohibitions, though, and this was a source of dissention in his marriage. But why was it a sin if Denise mounted him or if they made love in the daylight? Why was a man guilty of adultery if he burned with excessive love for his own wife?
It sometimes seemed to him that the Church Fathers knew little of the daily struggles of ordinary men and women. In his world, fornication was not a vice, at least not for men, and it was his secret belief that adultery ought to be a conditional sin, too. What of married men who’d taken the cross? Were they supposed to live as chastely as saints until they could be reunited with their wives? Even the worst sins, those held to be against nature, any sex act that was not procreative, seemed less wicked under certain circumstances. If a poor couple could not afford another child, was it truly so evil to try to avoid pregnancy? He thought the sin of sodomy was more understandable, more forgivable, when committed by soldiers, for what did clerics know of the solidarity of men at war or the sudden, burning urges that followed a battle, a narrow escape from death? All knew that was a vice of the monastery, and surely the Almighty would judge soldiers less harshly than easy-living, privileged monks? No, it seemed to him that there were greater sins than those of the flesh, and no sermons about the Devil’s wiles and eternal damnation had explained to his satisfaction why the Lord God would have made carnal intercourse so pleasurable if such pleasure was a pathway to Hell. Certain that celibacy was an unattainable goal for most men and women, he’d found himself a confessor who’d lay light penances and he took communion before battles so he’d die in a state of grace. More than that, he was convinced, a man could not do.
He’d just returned to Eleanor with a goblet of sweet red wine from Cyprus when his cousin Nicholas de Chauvigny hastened toward them. “Madame, the compalatius has just ridden in and is requesting to speak with you.”
As they awaited his entry, Eleanor commented to André that Aliernus Cottone had doubtless heard of their arrival and wanted to bid them welcome on King Tancred’s behalf. That seemed likely to André. But he changed his mind as soon as the compalatius was