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still fumbling with his ventail, seeking to draw it across his throat. He usually felt more secure once he was clad in mail; now, though, he could not help thinking that if he slipped on the wet deck, it would drag him down like an anchor. Richard was studying the pirate ships as intently as he studied battlefields, and Morgan hoped he was formulating a strategy for another unlikely victory; the odds were not in their favor.
    He reached his cousin just as Richard beckoned to the ship’s master, saying that he needed a man who spoke Greek. The Pisan nodded, for that was the native tongue of half a dozen members of the seventy-five-man crew. Before he could summon any of them, Hugh de Neville offered another candidate. “What of Petros, sire? You remember—the sailor from Messina. He acted as translator when your ladies were shipwrecked on Cyprus and proved to be very useful. He might even know some of those cutthroats, for I heard him boasting that he has a cousin on a pirate ship out of Kassiopi.”
    “Get him.”
    The words were no sooner out of Richard’s mouth than a youth materialized as if by magic before him. Petros’s black eyes were shining, for he was never happier than when he was the center of attention. “You ask for me, lord king? I speak Greek from the cradle, but my French . . . it is very good. When we were in Cyprus—”
    “I need information about these pirates. Do they know about Saladin? The war in the Holy Land?”
    “Of course they do, lord! They care about the recovery of Jerusalem, too. Why, some have even taken the cross. A man can be a pirate and a good Christian.”
    “Have they heard of me?”
    Petros grinned. “I daresay they’ve heard of you in Cathay, lord. After what you did at Jaffa—”
    Richard usually enjoyed hearing his battlefield prowess lauded, but now he cut off the sailor’s effusive praise with a gesture. “I hope you are right, Petros. I want you to tell them that this is the Holy Rood out of Acre, commanded by the English king.”
    Petros blinked in surprise. He obeyed at once, though, calling out to the closest of the pirate galleys. A reply soon came echoing across the waves. “They ask why they should believe that, lord.”
    Richard had expected as much. Turning to the ship’s master, he told the man to raise his banner and, within moments, the royal lion of England was fluttering proudly from the masthead. The knights were murmuring among themselves, uneasy about the king’s decision to reveal his identity. “Now tell them this, Petros. Say the English king is called Lionheart because he does not know how to surrender. He will never yield to them. To take this ship, they will have to fight to the death.”
    For the first time, Petros hesitated. “They are proud men, lord. I do not think they can be—”
    “Tell them,” Richard said, and Petros did. His message appeared to stir up a lively debate among the pirates. Richard waited a few moments, and then nodded again to Petros. “Now tell them this—that it need not come to that. There is a way by which we both benefit and with no blood being shed. Tell their chieftain that I would speak with him.”
    As Richard had anticipated, that was a challenge no pirate could refuse, and Petros was soon negotiating a meeting, while the knights clustered around their king, the bolder ones expressing their misgivings, fearing that he would agree to meet the pirate chieftain on his own galley, for they well knew Richard was quite capable of such a reckless act. He shrugged off their protests, and it was eventually agreed that he and the pirate would meet at midpoint between the two vessels. Their longboat was summoned from the beach, and much to the dismay of Richard’s men, he and Petros were soon being rowed out toward the approaching pirate longboat.
    Morgan and Baldwin de Bethune stood at the gunwale, never taking their eyes from the tall figure in the prow of the longboat. They’d both been loyal to the old