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gather men and money, and money, and money, and more money for the Crusade. |
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''I tell you plain," Simon said, his gray-blue eyes at once bleak and sad, "that this realm will be a milch cow to feed the purposes of Lusignan and the Latin princes of the Holy Land." |
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"Does the Queen approve this?" Sir Andre asked. |
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"How can she approve what will send her most dearly beloved child to an almost certain death and lay the whole kingdom open to dismemberment by her enemies?" |
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"Then nothing," Simon replied sharply. "Out of great suffering the Queen has grown wise. She has ceased to knock her head against stone walls to butt them down. She knows Richard. She will say naught against his desire. It is better that she keep his trust and have some say in overseeing the realm than that she protest against what is useless to protest against." |
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"You, I gather, will not take the Cross?" Sir Andre hazarded. |
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"I will do whatever the Queen commandsor, rather, the King. If you ask whether the spirit moves me, I say this. God should not have entrusted his Holy Places to that crowd of idiot luxuriants." |
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"The Pope," Simon said caustically, "will rid himself of three kings and not a few dukes whose realms will be ruled by churchmen who must look to the Pope for support and advancement." |
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"Yet if the King orders, we must take the Cross, or payor both," Sir Andre said slowly. |
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Simon clenched a fist and hit it into the open palm of his other hand. "So must we all, for to disobey our liege lord is to bring upon us far worse troubles than thin purses or the dangers of Crusade." |
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"And that is God's truth," Sir Andre agreed with heartfelt emphasis. "I lived through the end of Steph- |
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