by Jack Whyte
“Hmm. Well, I want to meet him now. And the others, too.” Hugh turned to St. Omer. “What think you, Goff?” The other knight shrugged elaborately but nodded in agreement, and Hugh turned back to Arlo. “Can you arrange a meeting?”
“Depends on when you want to meet.”
“As soon as may be, but that will depend on the time it takes you to find them and summon them here. How long will you need, think you?”
Arlo scratched at his chin. “Depends on where they are. Give me half a month to find out how long it will take to contact them, and I’ll be able to say then. Can you do that?”
De Payens smiled. “Aye, my friend, easily. With all the ‘depending’ going on in what you say, we have no other choice. Take all the time you require, so be it you waste none. But tell me, Arlo, truly, why you selected those particular names, out of all the others you have met.”
Arlo straightened up to his full height and looked from his employer to Godfrey St. Omer and back again, then shook his head as though he could not believe he was being asked to explain anything so obvious.
“Sir Hugh,” he said, leaning heavily on the pronunciation of the honorific, “I have been with you, day and night, ever since we were tads together, and you know that I am neither blind nor deaf. I hope you know, too, that I keep my mouth shut about your concerns and those of your friends, because if you don’t know that, I’ll be forced to think you’ve considered me completely witless all these years.”
De Payens nodded, somewhat taken aback. “Ah … well, now that you mention it, I have always relied on your discretion absolutely, without even thinking about it, or about the thought that you are, as you say, neither deaf nor blind.” He allowed himself a tiny smile. “I suppose that means all that’s left to do is to decide whether or not to kill you for what you’ve learned?”
“Kill me for what I’ve learned? What about guilt over what you’ve let slip? Your point’s moot, Sir Hugh. Fall on your own sword, if you will, but I’ve no need to be so foolish. I have already passed along all the information I had about you and been richly rewarded for my treachery. When d’you want me to start asking after these fellows?”
“Now, today, at once.”
Arlo nodded. “Right, tomorrow it is. I’ll take Jamal with me and travel as one of his people, and I’ll come back when I’ve discovered where all your friends are. In the meantime I’ll arrange to have Jubal look after the two of you while I’m away. Otherwise you’ll probably starve.” He turned and walked away, leaving the two friends alone.
“That was a very sudden decision, to summon everyone here, was it not?”
De Payens acknowledged the question with a shrug. “I suppose it was, but it’s long overdue. You and I have talked about the need for a Gathering. Now it seems to be the right time, if we can assemble everyone. Even if we can do nothing about the excavation the Council wants us to undertake, it will be good for the brethren to come together and revisit the ritual after such a long time.”
“Aye, if anyone can remember any of it.”
“I can, Godfrey, and so can you, because we can read and relearn it all between now and then, if need be. It will not be too difficult, for us or for anyone else. The material was well entrenched in the beginning, so it will come back to mind quickly. I am sure of that.”
“You’re probably right … There may be others out there, too, you know. Younger members of the brotherhood who have simply not come forward.”
“True, but for this first assembly I will be happy to confine our activities to people I know and whom I know I can trust, which is probably more important.” He quirked one eyebrow. “I know, because I can see it in your eyes, that you are about to ask me if I would distrust any of the brotherhood. And the answer is yes, I would. They are all men, Godfrey, subject to men’s weaknesses, and I have seen enough of men and their weaknesses, here in the desert, to convince me that I have no desire to trust any man before I have had time to study him closely. You may find that appalling, but that is how I am nowadays.”
St. Omer stood up and stretched hugely, rising on his toes and grunting with the pleasure of it. “I don’t find it appalling at all,” he said when he had finished. “I feel exactly the same way you do, albeit for different reasons. Four years chained to an oar, and you learn how few people there are in the world who are worthy of being allowed to live, let alone of being trusted. So there will be just the few of us.”
“Aye, for the first time at least, and we will leave the timing to Arlo. He will not disappoint us.”
“Where will you put them? All this rehearsal and repetition will be vocal, so we will have to be careful about where we do all this. It will probably be far from easy, in fact, now that I come to think of it. There may be all kinds of conniving and political secrecy being practiced here, but that is all among the priests and nobles, and most of it occurs within the confines of the palaces. It will be another matter altogether for a gathering of knights such as us to keep our meetings and our intentions from being seen, let alone our secret rituals.”
“Ibrahim Farraq. You don’t know him yet, but I do. I saved his favorite son’s life a long time ago and we became friends. He understands what it means to be silent and discreet and he runs the finest hostelry in Outremer, with the assistance of eight sons. I will arrange for us all to stay there when we convene, and Ibrahim will see to it that we are unobserved and undisturbed for the duration of our stay. Trust me, my friend, there is no need for concern on that matter.”
ARLO DID NOT DISAPPOINT THEM. He discovered the whereabouts of all five of the other knights within the two weeks he had asked for, and after consulting with de Payens about the most suitable date, he set out again on the second day of October, once again dressed in the long, flowing robes of the local inhabitants, to find each of them in person and summon them to attend a Gathering in Jerusalem on the last day of the month, the Feast of All Saints. Hugh had had no concept of how long their convocation might take, and so he had instructed Arlo to request that each of them come prepared to spend at least seven days, and perhaps as many as ten, in the city.
The appointed day arrived, and both Godfrey and Hugh were excited at the prospect of meeting their old friends again. Arlo had returned a full week earlier, with word that all five men, including Payn Montdidier, would make the journey, and de Payens had informed his superior, the man in charge of the Champagne contingent now that Count Hugh and his deputy had both returned to France, that he would be taking a two-week furlough in order to spend time with several old friends from his home region, whom he had not seen for many years. That done, he had visited the large hostelry run by Ibrahim Farraq and his eight sons and had made arrangements for his guests to be quartered and fed there, and he was now reasonably satisfied that everything was prepared for his friends’ arrival.
His friends, however, were taking far too long to arrive for Hugh’s liking. He had recognized, now that his self-imposed solitude was coming to an end, how important they were to him. They, like his servant Arlo, were among the very few men who had remained untainted in his mind after the atrocity of the sack of Jerusalem. With the exception of the men called Gondemare and Rossal, he had known all of them too well and for far too long ever to think, let alone believe, that they would have anything to do with the horrors that had so alienated him. And from all that he had heard of Gondemare, he was prepared to believe the same of him.
And they arrived at last, the first pair of them, riding side by side, emerging from a dense cloud of dust stirred up by the arrival of an enormous caravan, including at least a hundred camels, all of them fully laden with the spoils of other lands. But caked and layered dust and the sweat lines born of a hundred miles of desert roads did little to disguise the well-remembered bulk of Archibald St. Agnan, a formidable warrior and companion, and Payn Montdidier, whom Hugh had not seen in more than a decade. Fortunately, Hugh, Godfrey, Arlo, and the man Jubal, who had attached himself to Godfrey St. Omer as servant and bodygua
rd, had been waiting for them close to Ibrahim Farraq’s caravanserai, and they had warned the proprietor, well in advance, of the prodigious thirst likely to be evinced by their arriving guests.
St. Agnan and Montdidier, each of them accompanied by a trusted man, had arrived through the northern gate in the city walls. Where the others would appear was anyone’s guess, for Arlo had found both of them to the south of Jerusalem, Gondemare in the region close to Bethlehem, and Roland de Rossal in the vicinity of Jericho. It was Arlo who suggested that they go and await the other two at the southeastern gate, on the supposition that the road leading there was broader and better traveled, and therefore safer, than any other. By that time, having consumed more than a few jugs of the local bitter beer, they saddled up and made their way southward, around the outside of the city walls to a slight elevation from which they could watch the approaching travelers as they came within sight of the safety of Jerusalem’s walls.
Daylight faded into dusk, however, with no sign of any travelers approaching the southeastern gate, and long before that, the two new arrivals had begun to complain, albeit humorously, about the inconvenience to which they were being subjected. They had traveled long and uncomfortably to reach the city, they pointed out, and then, instead of being allowed to eat and rest, they had been asked to drink potent beer and then sit for hours in the hot sun, awaiting the arrival of people who seemed determined not to arrive.
It was a difficult argument to refute, but just as de Payens was preparing to address it, he saw Arlo, from the corner of his eye, tense suddenly and sit upright in the saddle, automatically raising his spear point to the vertical.
“What?” he snapped, apprehensive for no good reason.
Arlo made no answer, his body bent forward over his horse’s ears, his eyes fixed intently on the darkening horizon.
“Damnation, are you deaf? What is it, Arlo? What do you see?”
“Grief. Look yonder, by the rocks to the right of us, in the shadow of the mountain.”
De Payens squinted into the purple shadows of the thickening dusk, and caught a flicker of movement. There were people out there, and as his eyes adjusted to the different light, he saw what had alarmed Arlo: a cluster of people not quite running for their lives but moving as quickly as they could. Their dusty clothing rendered them almost invisible against the sand from so far away, and his first impression was that they were being chased by a group of horsemen. Almost immediately, however, he realized that they were, in fact, being protected by the horsemen, who were pushing them from behind, prodding them as fast as they could go, and forming a protective screen between them and whoever was pursuing them.
“Pilgrims,” Hugh grunted, “and seven horsemen. Could these be our friends, seven of them instead of three?”
St. Omer answered from behind his left flank. “It could be. They might have picked up some fellow travelers. I recognize Rossal, even from here, so two of those with him must be Gondemare and Bissot. The others could be anyone. But why are they—?” He broke off as another hard-riding group of horsemen swept into view around the edge of a spur of rock less than half a league from where he and his companions sat watching, making the answer to his unformed question obvious. De Payens was already calculating distances, speed, and time.
“Bandits. They’ll be on top of those pilgrims before we can reach half way to them, but if we move now, we might distract them. Are we as one?”
He heard the familiar sound of weapons being drawn and metal helms being tapped and slapped into place on their wearers’ heads, but by then he was already leaning into his saddle, raking his horse’s flanks with his roweled spurs and pointing his long spear towards the distant enemy. There were fifteen or sixteen of them—he could not see well enough for an accurate count—but that was far and away more than sufficient to overwhelm a group of seven opponents. Like bandits everywhere, however, they were undisciplined and disinclined to be heroic in the face of odds that were not overwhelmingly in their favor, and de Payens was hoping that the mere sight of him and his seven companions riding to assist the other group would demoralize them.
His initial estimate of speed and distance had been accurate, for the bandits had come within striking distance of their prey long before de Payens and his hard-charging newcomers were close enough to offer any threat. But the speed of their determined approach was enough to give the attackers pause, and the seven defending horsemen took full advantage of their indecision, grouping themselves in a disciplined line abreast and charging straight towards the center of the enemy, splitting them into two groups and leaving two of them sprawled motionless on the ground.
The bandits checked and swung away, attempting to regroup before turning back to attack the defenseless pilgrims, but their victims were no longer helpless. The rescuing group had already closed more than half the distance again, and events were moving quickly. The bandits could now hear the heavy drumming of the shod hooves of the Frankish war horses, and in mere moments, they knew, their numerical advantage would shrink from eight to nil. They broke again and spurred away, clearly expecting that the Franks would give up the pursuit and allow them to escape.
De Payens, however, had no intention of letting these marauders ride away unscathed. His blood was up, and he tightened his reins and urged his horse to greater speed, knowing instinctively that his seven companions were forming a compact group at his back, but he had not anticipated that the other seven riders would also come riding to join their charge, so that the fifteen of them, knights and companions, fell naturally into a powerful arrowhead formation that gave the now routed enemy no time to do anything other than flee.
For more than a league they gave chase, until de Payens realized that night was almost upon them and the bandits, with their lighter mounts, were leading him and his men deeper and deeper into the desert, where, as nomads, they would quickly regain the advantage they had lost. Reluctantly, he drew rein and turned his group back towards the city, which had long since fallen from view in the gathering darkness. The mood among the men was jubilant and lighthearted, the good feelings from their reunion and from the lengthy chase slow to dissipate, and they rode back towards Jerusalem in high good humor.
Gondemare, Rossal, and Bissot were all there, but the other four men were strangers. Two of them were knights, and each of those had an attendant man-at-arms with him. Although they were nominally in the service of Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem, they were visitors to Jerusalem on an official journey that had brought them from their base in the ancient garrison town of Caesarea. The seven had joined forces three days previously, traveling together for mutual support and protection, in the sure knowledge that only a strong and confident group would dare attack seven armored and well-mounted Franks. They had caught up with the group of pilgrims only that morning, and had ridden with them thereafter, and they had become aware of being stalked by the brigands only a short time before Hugh and his group discovered them.
There was no sign of the pilgrims by the time the riders returned to where they had left them, but that surprised no one. They had been within sight and walking distance of the city walls when the rescuers swept by them, and they had plainly decided to seek the safety of the city at once, before night fell, rather than to wait in the darkness for their saviors in order to express their gratitude, because for all they knew, de Payens and his men had gone charging off to their deaths, and the enemy might return to finish what they had begun.
One of the two knights from Caesarea, the younger of the pair, was incredulous over how close the brigands had come to the city walls, but he had been in Outremer for a mere two years and had spent none of that time near Jerusalem. This young firebrand, whose name was Anthony something—de Payens never did learn his full name—was alight with the fiery zeal of youth and innocence, and he was appalled that discipline should be so lax here in the very center and hub of the kingdom that a daring enemy would think nothing of venturing right up to the walls. De Payens and the others lis
tened to his outrage and glanced at one another, twisting their lips and scowling from time to time, although none of them wanted to be the one to disillusion the young knight by telling him the true state of things in and around the city.
The evening—what little remained of it after the seven brethren had all settled in to Ibrahim Farraq’s hostelry—was spent in conviviality, several of the knights not having seen one another in years, although all of them were veterans of the capture of Jerusalem and the founding of the kingdom. Eventually, they made arrangements to assemble the following day, first to rehearse each other in the long-unpracticed rituals of their Order and then, in the late afternoon, to celebrate the rites themselves for the first time that any of them knew of in the Holy Land. De Payens then ordered them all to bed, knowing that they would benefit more from a solid night’s sleep than they would from exchanging gossip far into the predawn hours. They went without a word of protest, and he did, too, but he was amazed at first, then angry, to discover that he could not sleep, and he lay awake long into the night, his mind seething with ideas.
SIX
The seven Brothers of the Order of Rebirth spent much of the following day, from early morning to mid-afternoon, revising and rehearsing the rituals governing the celebration that would take place later, but they began by sealing off one of the windowless main rooms in the central part of the caravanserai, and placing guards outside it, front and rear, while the others did what they could to transform the chamber into an approximation of the standard ritual lodge of the Order of Rebirth. They opened up the chest of regalia sent by Count Hugh and removed its contents, which, they discovered, included several large rectangular sheets of heavy cloth in both black and white, and by arranging those in appropriate places, they succeeded in transforming the large room to resemble, as closely as possible, the austere temples of their own Gatherings at home. They lacked the tessellated floor of alternating tiles, but everything else in the darkened chamber was as it should be, either stark black or blazing white. When the arrangements were complete, they locked the doors, then dispersed to their own quarters to prepare for the afternoon’s ritual.