The Last Crusader Kingdom by Helena P Schrader

Author:Helena P Schrader [Schrader, Helena P]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC014000
ISBN: 9781627875172
Publisher: Wheatmark, Inc.
Published: 2017-08-22T23:00:00+00:00

“There’s a disreputable Greek youth outside asking to see you, sir,” the sergeant of the guard told John, catching him as he returned from putting his and his father’s horses up in the stables.

“Me?”

“Well, he said ‘Janis, the despot’s servant,’ and I don’t know who else he would have meant.”

John’s heart missed a beat. It had to be Lakis! “Where is he?”

“I told him to wait on the other side of the street by the khan you used to live in. I didn’t want him accosting people or trying to slip inside. You can’t trust these Greeks, sir. They’re all slippery as eels—liars and cheats at best and outright rebels at worst. If you want me to come with you—”

“No, I’ll be fine!” John insisted, and hastened back out onto the street. He didn’t spot Lakis right away because he was sitting on the ground with his back against the side of the khan. As John approached, Lakis got cautiously to his feet. He had grown inches, and although he was still thin, he was somehow less feral-looking than the last time they’d met.

“Lakis! It is you!” John exclaimed, grinning broadly.

Lakis did not return his smile. He gazed at John with piercing eyes and an earnest expression. “You lied to me,” Lakis opened the conversation.

“I—”John’s smile faded. “I had to. I was in disguise. I wanted to get to know Nicosia without anyone knowing who I was. I wanted, for a little while, not to be a Frank.”

“Why?” Lakis demanded.

John took a deep breath and tried to think through his answer very carefully. “Because I knew that if everyone saw me as a Frank, I wouldn’t get to know the real Nicosia or have an honest conversation with anyone. That’s true, isn’t it?”

“But why did you care?”

“My mother’s Greek,” John answered with a shrug. “I don’t hate Greeks.”

That took Lakis by surprise. He started, frowned, and looked at John harder than before. He’d heard that one of the Franks was married to a Comnena, but John had been there before the Comnena arrived with her Frankish husband. Surely he couldn’t be related. “You’re not—I mean, you can’t . . . ”

“What?” John asked back, baffled. “What’s so strange about having a Greek mother? Many of us born here in Outremer are of mixed blood. Queen Melisende was half Armenian—”

“But not the Comnena? Your mother isn’t the Comnena?” Lakis broke in, sounding desperate for reassurance that this wasn’t the case.

“What’s wrong with that?” John asked back irritably. He was proud of his mother’s blood.

Lakis crossed himself and started to back away.

John reached out and grabbed him to stop him from escaping again. “Lakis, what is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Lakis froze. He had been raised to think of the Emperors as semi-divine. His father had taught him that: no matter how unjust Isaac Comnenus had seemed, he was still a member of the Imperial family and, and, and . . . now a member of that family was touching him.

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