by Jack Whyte
Alexander Sinclair regarded his cousin calmly, his face empty of expression, then nodded slowly. “Aye … Well, as you said, you never knew him.” His tone was as bland as his facial expression, and André could only stand blinking at him, wondering if he had been rebuked, while Alec continued: “So how has the Master’s death changed your friend? He must be different, now that he is free from disapproval?”
“No, Harry is the same. He lived in isolation for months, within the Templar fraternity, for there were many who had snubbed him at the outset, afraid to do otherwise lest they attract de Ridefort’s displeasure, and then when de Ridefort was killed, that October, Harry discovered that he preferred to remain alone, content with his own company. He had seen who avoided him before, and had no wish to consort with them again simply because they were no longer afraid of de Ridefort. Then, somehow, when I arrived, he and I became friends, and we have been close friends ever since.”
“How long ago did you arrive?”
“Ten days ago.”
“Hmm. You know I heard about de Ridefort’s death at the time. I was still a prisoner then, but the tidings of the Temple Master’s death swept right across the Saracen world, and there were celebrations everywhere. I know he was executed, beheaded, but I never did discover how he was captured. He was long dead when I was released and I had other matters to concern me then.”
“Well, it was exactly as you might have expected him to be captured: in the thick of things.” André stood up and crossed to where Alec’s sword stood propped against a stone. “May I?” When Alec nodded, he took the sword in hand, holding the long, gleaming blade out in front of him and eyeing it as he spoke. “There was a fight that day, a savage one, but not big enough to be called a battle because it sprang up suddenly, outside the walls of Acre—a spontaneous clash, rather than a strategic confrontation. And strangely enough, it was the only fight of its kind that I have heard of in which Guy commanded brilliantly and distinguished himself.” He stepped to one side, swinging the long sword with him, slowly, hefting it for weight and balance. “Stranger still, Conrad was there that day, too, and the pair of them managed to cooperate effectively. It was October fourth, 1189, and I remember the date solely because it was the day Gerard de Ridefort died.” St. Clair smiled ruefully, then returned the blade to where it had been propped against the stone. “Beautiful weapon,” he said as he sat down again.
“Classically perfect de Ridefort behavior,” he continued, “a straight frontal charge against a superior—no, an overwhelming concentration of enemy cavalry. It was the third recorded time in his career as Master of the Temple that the man suspended all common sense, in the blind belief that God would protect him and his righ-teousness, and committed his forces suicidally against impossible odds. And as on the two previous occasions, the enemy merely split their formations and flowed around his charge, yielding nothing in the way of ground or advantage, content to stand off and shoot down the charging monks as they rode by, and then to smother the remainder with the sheer mass of their numbers. And de Ridefort survived again. He always did. And he was taken prisoner. But this time the Saracens executed him out of hand.”
“Sic transit gloria mundi.”
“Something like that. You didn’t like him, did you?” “De Ridefort?” Alec Sinclair pursed his mouth in distaste. “Didn’t like him, didn’t trust him, couldn’t tolerate him. He cost me too many good friends over the years, with his pig-headed, self-righteous stubbornness and bigotry. You may call it inspiration, but I called it bullying and obstinate idiocy. The man was the perfect Temple Boar. Not a thought in his head that did not have to do with the Temple, its glory, its dictates, its dogma, its needs, and when it might require him next to bathe. That is a very narrow path to walk through life.” He slapped both palms down on his thighs. “So you are here on Council business. When were you Raised, and where?”
“Like you, on my eighteenth birthday. And at a Gathering in Tours, in the house of one of the Council members.”
“And when did you decide to join the Temple?”
André waggled one hand from side to side. “I never did … not really. That decision was made for me, by King Richard.”
“The man himself, the Lionheart? I am impressed.”
“You need not be. He is my liege lord. And that, too, is a long story for another time. More important now, I have dispatches for you—a wealth of information and instructions, I believe. They are in my saddlebags, so I’ll give them to you when Harry comes back.”
“Do you have any idea what they concern?”
“Yes and no. They are from the Council. I was amply provided with dispatches when I arrived, some for the Commander of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, from his Temple superiors in France, but most of them for you. They all looked similar on the outside, so I had to be careful not to mingle them. Yours, however, were labeled in Arabic. I spent a long time receiving careful instruction in Arabic.”
“You speak Arabic?” The astonishment in Sinclair’s voice was worth all the time and trouble and effort André had expended, and he permitted himself a tiny smile.
“Barely. I understand it far better than I speak it, but I do speak a little … atrociously, I’ve been told. ”
“And you learned it over there?”
“I did, from a number of distinguished teachers, mostly in Poitiers, some in Marseille.”
Alec Sinclair immediately switched languages. “Tell me, then, about what you have learned.”
“Many things, in a broad range of subjects. The Koran, of course, first above all, the words of Allah and His Prophet, without which nothing in the Arab world makes sense. Then much about the diversity and complexity of Islamic society, and of the various elements within it. I can also speak with authority, and from either viewpoint, on the differences between the Shi’a and Sunni sects.”
“That is amazing.” Sinclair had been grinning as he listened, but now he said in a low, serious voice, “Cousin, I swear that that is probably the worst Arabic I have ever heard spoken, even by a Templar ferenghi.”
“So why were you sent to find me? You, I mean, and not someone else?”
“Because the members of the Council knew we are cousins and we know each other. And because no one had heard from you in a very long time and there was very real concern that you might be dead. My understanding is that you had been entrusted with some matter of grave importance to the brotherhood and had been engaged upon pursuing it for years, until the outbreak of the war and your disappearance. My task was to find you and to acquire the information you had collected, then return it to the Council.”
“If that was all that they required of you, you had no need to learn Arabic. What do you know about this information I was collecting?”
“Nothing, really. Nothing at all.”
Sinclair looked closely at him, then looked away.
“Then there is something lacking here … something that neither one of us knows. How large are these dispatches you have brought for me? Are they heavy? Bulky?”
“They are heavy, considering that they are merely written missives. And they are in two large wallets, both of them full.”
“Aha. And what were you to do with them in the event that I was dead?”
“Read them, and then try to complete your task.”
“But then you would have had to start from the beginning, from the very outset. And I had been working at it for years. Even speaking Arabic, you would have been able to do nothing.”
“Perhaps not, but I had—I have—a list of names, three names in all, of people with whom you are known to have associated in the past. I was to contact them and try to reconstruct your activities, hoping to find whatever reports you might have left behind … in concealment.”
“Hmm.” The single sound was dismissive, perhaps contemptuous, but Sinclair had made up his mind. “Well then, we had best collect these wallets of yours and be on our separate ways. It sounds as though I have much to read, and I believ
e the quicker I set myself to the task, the better it will be. Can you whistle for your friend? I will ride back with you as far as I can, but I will leave you before we draw near to the camps at Acre, for I have no wish to be seen. When I have read everything and understand what is required of me, I will send them back to you, for you to read. It seems appropriate that, if you are to run the risk of being killed with me, you should understand what we are attempting to do. I presume something is required from both of us in any case, although there is little to be gained from speculating as to what. But I will also send you instructions on where to meet me next time. It will not be as difficult or far away next time, I promise. Now call for Harry.” FOR A MILE OR TWO the men spoke of generalities until they fell into a comfortable silence, and for some time there was nothing to be heard but the clopping of hooves and the creaking of saddle leather, and St. Clair found himself thinking about the absence of metallic bridle sounds. None of the knights wore metal bridles. That was one of the first things he had noticed on arriving here. Sound traveled far in the desert air, and many a knight had died uselessly in the early days of conquest here because of a jingling bridle. He was brought back to awareness by the sound of his friend Douglas clearing his throat before starting to speak again.
“May I ask you a question, Sir Alexander? A question I have no right to ask?”
Alec looked drolly at Harry. “An impertinent question, you mean. You may ask, but it sounds portentous and formal, so I may choose not to answer it. Ask away.”
“One of the first things you said to us today, about not knowing whether to meet us or not, was … Well, you said a few things, in fact, that have been troubling me ever since, but you began by saying that few men are worth trusting nowadays, and that you thought André’s little tale about his nose might have been used as a lure to draw you out of hiding.”
“That is correct. So, what are you asking me?”
Harry threw up his hands in exasperation. “You are a monk, like me, like André here. We are all three Templars, and that means that, apart from our prowess against the enemy, we own little to cause concern or envy among our fellows, who are all as poor as we are, having taken the same vows. Were you saying that your fellow Templars wish you ill? And if not them, then who? Wait, wait …” He slowed himself down and began again. “What I am asking you, Master Sinclair, is why an honored knight like you, a veteran of years of service here, should be in so much fear of his own kind that he feels the need to live alone and in hiding. That is my question.”
“There is no short answer to that question, Harry,” he said eventually. “Yes, there are some among my fellow Templars who, if they do not wish me ill, certainly do not wish me well. But not everyone in this army is a poverty-sworn monk with no ambitions, and I have, whether or not you choose to believe it, excellent and defensible reasons for living alone and in hiding. It is not such a great departure from our chosen way of life, if you stop and consider it, Harry. I live alone, so I find I am free of temptations most of the time. I also live very simply, feeding myself upon what I can catch, barter, or infrequently grow, and I have ample time for prayer and contemplation of the vale of tears we live in. I live, in fact, not so much like a monk as an anchorite … or even an eremite.” He fell silent then, and let the younger knights mull over his words before continuing.
“Much of the trouble I have had in the recent past has sprung from my being held by the Saracens. You may have heard mention of that before, in fact I mentioned it myself, did I not?”
“Aye,” André said with a nod.
“Well, simply put, that is the source of my troubles.”
“Your captivity?” André said. “Forgive me, but I must be misunderstanding. How can the fact that you were a captive cause problems for you now? Did you convert to Islam?” He was half jesting, but contrived to look perturbed, nonetheless, and Alec smiled.
“No, I did not … not quite. But I did something almost as reprehensible. I enjoyed portions of my captivity.”
André glanced sideways at Harry, as if to make sure that he was hearing the same thing. “You enjoyed it? Captivity?”
“Portions of it.”
“Which portions would those have been?”
“The people, for one thing, the ordinary Saracen villagers, women and children and old men. Whenever we Franks think of them at all—and we seldom do because all our attention is taken up by the men, the warriors—we think of them as nomads, wanderers with no permanent homes. But not all of them are nomadic. The village in which I was held was prosperous, after its fashion, and the tribe had lived there since the days of the local emir’s grandfather, growing sufficient goats and crops in the normal way of things to keep themselves alive and provide a small surplus for trading. But their village was built over an underground water source and they had many date palms, and that was the source of their wealth and permanence. Once I grew accustomed to being there, unable to escape, I found myself growing to like them. I understood and spoke their language, although none of them knew that, but that helped me greatly towards understanding who they were and how they lived.
“I was a prisoner, and so naturally enough they put me to work, slave work for the most part, although it was little different from their own. Everybody in that village works in some fashion, for there is no room for unproductive bodies. They watched me closely at first, suspicious and hostile and probably afraid I might go mad and murder all of them some night while they slept and all their men were away at war. But as time passed and they observed that I worked well and was no threat to anyone, they began to show me small kindnesses—an extra bowl of broth, or an additional mouthful of bread or hummus. One of the old men, whom I had once voluntarily helped to carry a heavy load, carved me a wooden pillow of my own. And so when the time seemed right, I permitted myself to ‘learn’ their language, repeating selected words aloud and very cautiously, taking great pains to make them sound correct yet slightly alien.
“I felt quite guilty, I recall, for they were all delighted with my efforts, and particularly with the fact that I would even try to learn their tongue. But they were very supportive, and within the space of several months I was able to converse with them. I had to be careful, at first, not to betray myself by ‘learning’ too much, too quickly, but the discipline of that proved beneficial, and soon I could rattle on about most things, although I professed to know nothing at all of the Koran. I was a ferenghi, after all, a foreigner and a Christian. And then, eventually, I was released and returned here, to Acre. And that is when I first found trouble.”
It was Harry’s turn to ask a question. “How? Why? What did you do?”
“Nothing much. I have never been much of a talker, so I listened while others talked, and I disagreed with some of what I heard—with most of it, in fact—and I said so. And every word I said was repeated and twisted out of recognition and then thrown back to me as accusations. They said I had been traduced by the enemy, that I was a Saracen-lover, that I could no longer be trusted and should be placed in quarantine, isolated from decent Christians who might be influenced and suborned by my heretical beliefs.”
“Heretical? Was that word used?”
Sinclair grunted in disgust. “Of course it was used. But the fool who used it did not even know what it means. He knew only that he had heard it used impressively by some angry priest who was bent on frightening someone. Can you read, Harry? Can you write?”
Harry made a face. “Aye, I can write my name, and I can read it, too. But not much else.”
“Then you are better off than the next hundred of your fellows. André here can read and write, I know, because he could do both already when first I met him, and he was but ten years old. But André is unusual in that, for someone who is not a churchman. Most knights cannot read. Not one of them in any hundred may be literate.” He paused for only a moment, and when he continued, his voice took on an oratorical cadence, deliberately assumed, so that as he continued to speak, it grew in volume a
nd articulation until he was declaiming, his voice ringing out over his horse’s pointed ears.
“Knights have no need to read, or to write. They have no time to waste on such things. They are educated only in warfare and fighting, and they will know nothing else for the duration of their lives. And yet being men, they are too stupid to recognize or accept the frightening vastness of their own ignorance, and so in hope of sounding wise and seeming clever, they quote and misquote their betters and, all too frequently and unfortunately, their benighted peers as well, filling the air with the belching emptiness of bellicose ignorance being misquoted by fools and ignoramuses. That is the grand total, the sum contribution to our existence, of most of the men who compose this army. And set above those, we are asked to believe, are their betters … the makers of military opinion and shapers of belief. But sadly, they, too, are knights for the most part, no better informed or educated than their underlings.” He stopped dramatically, then resumed in a much quieter, deadly serious voice.
“And then there come the clerics, last of all, but powerful beyond credence—the priests, the churchmen, the so-called men of God. More than all others combined, these, I believe, are the true malefactors of our time. Their ignorance is of another order. Malignant, oppressive, and tyrannical, they are consumed by their own self-importance and all too often just as tragically blind and bigoted as the most ignorant of their followers.”
Harry Douglas was looking at Sinclair with rounded, awe-stricken eyes, his mouth slightly open as though he was about to speak but could not move his jaw, which was for several moments exactly true. But then he found his tongue and managed to say, “You told them that? You said that to the priests?”