by Jack Whyte
He was aware, because he had discussed the matter at great length with the infidel Hassan one night, beside a fire of dried camel dung, that he had come perilously close to losing his soul to the demon of Despair, whose depredations were every bit as lethal to devout Muslims as they were to Frankish Christians. Now, knowing how close he had come to losing everything he valued, St. Clair was prepared to return and confess and acknowledge all his weaknesses. His sole remaining regret, he realized as he rode towards the city’s walls, was the loss of his new friend, and he would have been astonished to know that he had passed many times, and would continue to pass in future, within mere paces of Hassan’s permanent encampment in the city, because even had he come face to face with Hassan the humble horse trader, it would never have crossed his mind that he might be looking at Hassan the aristocratic Shi’a warrior.
His reappearance at the stables created nowhere near as much of a furor as his first one had. His brethren were glad to see him, and they made no secret of it, but he was extremely conscious from the moment of his return that a gulf had opened up between him and them. It was obvious that they were all curious about what had happened to him and where he had been, but it was equally clear that none of them knew what to say to him or how to treat him. Not a single person commented upon his lack of weapons, and he found that ludicrous, because if there was one major truth governing all their lives in Outremer, it was that no one could expect to live for any length of time unarmed in the desert. He was amused, at first, but quickly grew awkward himself, and within little more than an hour he was speaking to no one, and nursing his injured feelings in resentful silence.
Later that evening, he was summoned to meet with the two senior brethren, Godfrey St. Omer and Hugh de Payens, and when he entered the main recording room at the rear of the stables, he found them waiting for him, their faces studiously devoid of expression. The interview that followed was an awkward and one-sided one, until the moment when St. Clair realized that his own formless shame was driving him to behave with a stubborn pride and arrogance that was utterly beyond justification.
The two men who were questioning him had nothing but his own best interests at heart. There was no question in his mind concerning that. They were not disapproving churchmen, looking to condemn him for moral dereliction, nor were they fathers confessor demanding penitence. They were knights and soldiers, plainspoken and straightforward in their dealings with all men, and they were his sworn brothers in the Order of Rebirth, genuinely concerned for his physical and mental welfare and entirely confident that, as a man of honor, bound by their common code, any moral dilemma in which he found himself involved would be solved to the best of his own abilities and without detriment to them or their Order.
St. Omer had started to ask him another question, assuming that the previous one would go unanswered as had all the others, when St. Clair held up a hand to stop him, and then launched into a detailed explanation of everything that had happened to him in the recent past, beginning with his discovery of the blue stone and omitting only the identity of the woman whom he had recognized in his dreams, and who had precipitated the entire chain of events. Apart from that, he held nothing back and made no attempt to conceal the fact that he believed himself guilty of having broken all three of his vows, and that he had ridden out in search of death, hoping to expiate his sins in suffering some form of martyrdom. He described how he had been taken captive and then rescued and delivered by Hassan the Shi’a.
From the moment St. Clair began to speak, St. Omer, who had known nothing of the dreaming or of St. Clair’s struggles with the succubus, sat listening open mouthed and wide eyed with astonishment. Not so de Payens. Sir Hugh sat without speaking, too, as rapt as was his colleague, but for different reasons. He had been unsurprised by the young knight’s revelations about his broken vows, for he had suspected something of the kind, something connected to the woman in the younger man’s dreams and to St. Clair’s long and unusual confinement in the tunnels of the Temple Mount, for he knew that, among all of them, Stephen St. Clair had been the one most accustomed to the freedom of patrolling and spending the major part of his time beneath the open skies.
He found the matter of the Shi’a warrior far more intriguing, because from the moment St. Clair mentioned that an unnamed “friend” had apparently sent the Shi’a searching for him, de Payens had been seeing Princess Alice’s face in the forefront of his mind, remembering what she had said to him when they met, about setting a Muslim friend to find St. Clair. He had heard rumors that Alice had friends and allies among the desert nomads, but he could not quite bring himself to believe that the princess’s contacts could be sufficiently extensive to enable her, young as she was, to reach out into the wilds of the desert sands and command the attention and obedience of a man like this warrior Hassan, who was formidable by any standards. But St. Clair’s evidence indicated clearly that someone had done precisely that, and Hugh could think of no one else whom it might be. He said nothing to St. Clair of what he suspected, however, and contented himself with asking the knight if he had any idea of who this mysterious “friend” might be, accepting without comment the headshake he received in response.
When the younger knight’s story was complete, the two older brothers sat mulling over all that he had told them, and finally it was de Payens who spoke up.
“Well, Brother Stephen, you have obviously been close to despair, and equally obviously, you have survived it and passed by it. That is good. On the matter of your conscience and your self-doubt over the sins you think you have committed, I can say nothing, save to express my own belief that you appear, to me, to have broken none of your vows irrevocably. As I see it, having listened to you describe what occurred, I can discern fleeting weaknesses, perhaps a lapse in judgment, but nothing of willful rebellion or disobedience. Of course that is not my province, and so I am unqualified to judge. My suggestion, however, would be that you return and visit Patriarch Warmund. He is the man who can advise you best on what you ought to be doing about all that is troubling you. I have to be close by his place tomorrow, so I will visit him and ask if you might talk with him again, and when.”
“The Patriarch is not here, Hugh.” St. Omer’s voice was low. “He left for Antioch yesterday, and will be gone for a month, do you not recall? We saw him off together.”
Hugh de Payens raised his eyes to the heavens and clasped his hands prayerfully in front of him. “One more instance, Lord God, of the tyranny of advancing age. Too many things on my mind these days.” He turned back to St. Clair. “So, that will have to wait, Brother Stephen. As soon as the Patriarch Archbishop returns, I will make the arrangement for you to meet with him, and in the meantime the weeks will pass quickly. I promise, you will not be bored.” He glanced at St. Omer. “For the time being, if the matter of the jewel continues to trouble you, and it evidently does, then that is easily resolved. Give it into the custody of Brother Godfrey here, and we will say no more about it. That done, relieve your mind of any guilt concerning it and rest yourself here, among your brothers. You have been long away. Tell them where you have been, and of the adventures you have had, for although they may not ask, they would love to know. Now go in peace and fret no more until the month has passed and you have spoken to Warmund de Picquigny.”
THREE
Hugh de Payens was proved correct, for the month flew by and was gone before St. Clair ever had time to think about time’s passing, so busy had he been since his return. He spent much of the time underground, laboring hard with his fellows, and much of the remaining time he spent in prayer, and in studying the mystifying charts of the underground labyrinth that had come from France. Those were kept in a chest in the records room in the monks’ quarters, and St. Clair found them fascinating, for the workings they depicted were immense and complex, and yet nothing the knights had found came anywhere close to being identifiable in the drawings.
He was working there one day, deep in concentration on one map, when An
dré de Montbard interrupted him to deliver a summons for him to attend upon Warmund de Picquigny at his earliest convenience. Because St. Clair had been expecting the invitation, he made his way immediately to the Archbishop’s palace. He reported to the guard at the main entrance and then was led by one of the Patriarch’s cowled clerical functionaries through a maze of rooms and corridors, none of which he remembered from his previous visits. He thought nothing of that, simply assuming that the Patriarch would have his own reasons for being wherever he happened to be that day.
The cleric led him past the end of one wide gallery that St. Clair remembered as leading to the Patriarch’s personal quarters, because he recognized a magnificent tapestry that hung there. They passed by, however, and his guide conducted him beyond, to a high-ceilinged room with stone walls, a flagged, rush-strewn floor, and small, high-set windows that managed to imbue the place with a dank, chilled air that reminded St. Clair far more of northern Anjou than any other place he had seen in Outremer. His escort waved him, none too amicably, towards a high-backed chair and then withdrew, leaving him alone to sit and wait.
He had been waiting for what he estimated to be the better part of a half hour, and had long since lost the battle to restrain his growing impatience, when the heavy door at his back swung open and he rose to his feet, turning to acknowledge the Patriarch. It was not Warmund de Picquigny who strode towards him, however. Instead, it was the man he recognized from a previous visit as being the Archbishop’s amanuensis, a bishop whose name would not come to mind. St. Clair merely inclined his head, prepared to hear that the Patriarch had been detained and was unable to keep their appointment, and so he was taken aback when the newcomer fixed him with a withering, unfriendly glare and waved him back into his seat without a word of cordiality or greeting. St. Clair subsided into his chair again, clasping the end of one of its arms gently in his right hand and adjusting the dagger at his belt with the other.
The bishop took a chair behind the table by the empty fireplace, where he began to pore over a document he had brought in with him, leaving St. Clair, once again, to wait in silence. The bishop sat reading for some time, frowning portentously, St. Clair thought, and then, just as the knight was preparing to stand up and walk out in protest at such unconscionable treatment, the cleric sighed loudly, threw down the parchment—it immediately sprang back into its cylindrical shape—and peered at St. Clair, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and fingertip.
“Stephen St. Clair,” he said. “Do you know who I am?”
Stephen bit back the retort that sprang to his tongue but refused to be browbeaten by a cleric, no matter how highly ranked, and so he merely shrugged. “A bishop?”
“I am Odo de St. Florent, Bishop of Fontainebleau, secretary amanuensis to his Grace Warmund, Patriarch Archbishop of Jerusalem.” He fell silent and waited, presumably to observe the effect of his pronouncement, so St. Clair kept his face expressionless for a count of five heartbeats and then nodded, once.
“I see.”
“The Patriarch has empowered me to interrogate you on his behalf, since his business will not permit him the time or opportunity to follow this affair in person.”
“What affair?”
Odo glared at him. “You will address me as ‘my lord Bishop,’ and you will not speak at all until required to.”
“What affair, Bishop Odo? I do not know what you are talking about.”
“This—” Odo waved a hand towards the parchment scroll on the tabletop. “The affair under investigation.”
St. Clair was ill at ease with this development, but not as badly disconcerted as Odo had presumed he would be. He knew he had done nothing wrong—nothing, at least, to warrant interrogation by Odo of Fontainebleau or any other churchman, including the Patriarch himself. Confession and absolution was one thing, between a man, his God, and the priest or bishop who served as interlocutor, but he had done nothing to merit this kind of treatment. And yet … Unsure of himself, he sat back into his chair.
“What are you investigating? Tell me what it is you want to know.”
“It is a matter concerning your abduction of several months ago, and this more recent disappearance of the past few weeks. It has come to the Patriarch’s attention that there are inconsistencies and irregularities in what you have said about them to your superiors and what he has been told about them from other sources. I now wish to hear the pertinent details again, so that between the two of us, his Grace and I may reach a conclusion regarding your truthfulness, or the lack of it, in this nonsensical affair.”
“Explain what you mean by nonsensical.”
There was an edge to St. Clair’s voice, and Odo’s head jerked back as though he had been slapped. “How dare you question me! You are insolent! Remember who I am, and do not force me to have you reminded.” He held up the heavy, jeweled pectoral cross of his bishop’s rank. “This is a symbol of who I am and what I represent, and you would be well advised not to lose sight of it. You are a menial brother in a small and irregular fraternity of friars. You will therefore address me with the respect to which I am entitled.”
St. Clair shifted in his seat and leaned forward, deliberately hooking his thumb around the cross-hilt of his dagger and pushing it into prominence at his waist. “Aye, my lord Bishop,” he said quietly, “at times we all need symbols to remind ourselves and others of what we are and what we represent.” He saw Odo’s eyes grow wide, and was satisfied that he had made his point. “You have come close to accusing me of lying to the Patriarch and to my brethren, Bishop Odo, and therefore I claim privilege on two counts, as knight and monk: I wish to discuss this matter with my superiors in the Order, and I wish to speak again with the Patriarch in person.”
There was a long silence, and then Odo managed to say, “Again? You wish to speak with the Patriarch again?”
“Of course I do, as would you yourself in similar plight. When last I spoke with Master Warmund, at the instigation of my superior, Brother Hugh de Payens, his lordship graciously heard my confession on these very matters that you say are now troubling him, and found me blameless. He sent me away that day shriven of all guilt. Thus, if he wishes to question me further on this matter, I will confess myself puzzled, but I will submit to his authority, so be it I may do so in person.” St. Clair waited, and then asked, “Did you not know that? The Patriarch said nothing of it to you?”
Odo somehow managed to keep his face expressionless, but his eyes betrayed his panic and confusion, and it was suddenly clear to St. Clair that the bishop had been lying. Whatever the purpose underlying this interview might be, it had nothing to do with Warmund de Picquigny. Odo had been unmasked, and now, while he scrabbled frantically for words with which to reassert himself, it was St. Clair’s turn to sit and frown, and he did so with great aplomb, leaning back into the uncomfortable chair and folding his arms on his chest, waiting for Odo of Fontainebleau to speak.
Odo, however, was in no hurry, simply because he did not know what to say. He knew he had erred badly and destroyed his own credibility, but now he had no faintest idea of how to proceed, for no matter what he attempted now, the man facing him would refuse to comply, and Odo, still vividly conscious of the dagger at the fellow’s belt, was afraid of pushing him too far. Alice, he knew, would be livid at such a pathetic failure, after coaching him on exactly which questions to ask.
He was saved from further agonizing by St. Clair, who addressed him in a voice that evinced nothing but courtesy.
“I propose, Master Bishop, that we begin again. Clearly you brought me here under false pretenses, hoping to gain some advantage by intimidating me while interrogating me. No need to protest, my lord—I know I am correct. I have no idea what it was you wanted, but I have nothing to hide, and I confess I am curious to know what you are looking for, so if you would care to start afresh, we can proceed.”
Odo sat staring at the young knight through narrowed eyes, fury simmering inside him hotly enough to scald his throat, al
though he allowed nothing to show on his face. He knew he was being offered a way out, but he was still unable to grasp it, to see the route he had to take. And finally it came to him that Alice herself would be the one best suited to resolve this entire charade.
“There is … a lady,” he began. “A lady whom I know. A patroness of great wealth and influence who is … desirous of meeting with you, to discuss matters of mutual interest.”
“That is not possible. I am a monk. There can be no mutuality of interest between me and any woman.” St. Clair had known instantly who the woman was, because he clearly remembered de Payens remarking, the very first time St. Clair had ever seen Bishop Odo, that the cleric spent much time in the company of the King’s second-eldest daughter. It had seemed to St. Clair at the time that there might even have been a suggestion of too much time attached to the comment, but he saw no point now in naming the princess. Even as he spoke, however, Odo was already shaking his head.
“Believe me, Brother Stephen, you need have no fears on the grounds of propriety. The lady to whom I refer is—”
“I know exactly to which lady your refer, my lord Bishop, but not even the Princess Royal can claim exemption from the laws of God. I am surprised to hear you suggest otherwise.”
For the second time in the brief course of this interview, Odo was stunned into slack-jawed speechlessness, and St. Clair realized he might have said too much. Clearly the bishop knew nothing about his abduction by the princess, and he, as the simple monk he professed to be, could have had no plausible reason for his assertiveness. He pressed on, giving Odo no time to recover either his wits or his wind, recalling the few occasions when he had met the princess harmlessly in public, and explaining, with a sheepish smile that felt as false to him as a wooden mask, why the princess’s name had come to him so unerringly. Odo had spoken, he said, of a woman of wealth and influence, and the princess and her mother were the only Christian women of wealth and influence whom St. Clair had seen since his arrival in Jerusalem. In fact, he added shyly, should the truth be known, the princess was the only woman of rank that he had ever met since leaving his home in France as a boy, to travel and soldier with his liege lord. Thus hers was the only name in his mind when Odo spoke of a lady of influence and he had assumed … He allowed his voice to fade out, then mumbled that he could not imagine what the lady could conceivably wish to discuss with a simple, unwashed knight monk.