Knights of the Black and White

by Jack Whyte

  Startled back to awareness of where he was, he looked up to see twin lines of men come jogging from his right, then stop and link arms along each side of the narrow thoroughfare, preventing anyone from crossing. They were King’s Men of the palace guard, and he turned to see whom they were escorting, but all he could see was a closed coach. As it trundled past, he took note of the heavily curtained windows and of the escort accompanying the cumbersome vehicle, a half score of well-armed, uniformed men in front of the carriage and another half score behind it, all of them wearing the same heraldic insignia: a stylized fountain in bright blue on a field of white. De Payens stifled a surge of impatience at being held there, because he knew they would not be kept waiting long. The King’s Guard who lined the street, facing stoically towards the people watching, were long accustomed to their procedure. They waited until the carriage had passed behind their backs, no doubt counting in silent cadence all the while, and then the last section of them disengaged smoothly and ran forward to take up position ahead of the procession, leaving the street behind them free for those who had been waiting to cross.

  St. Agnan made no effort to cross the street, but stood and watched until the carriage had disappeared around the next bend. “Who was that?” he asked when it had gone.

  “Royal family,” Hugh told him. “Probably one of the King’s daughters, judging by the closed curtains, and even more probably the second eldest of them, Alice, since the escort were wearing Bishop Odo’s colors.”

  “Who’s Bishop Odo?”

  “Erstwhile Bishop of Fontainebleau, now secretary to the Patriarch Archbishop, and the Archbishop’s liaison with the King.”

  St. Agnan turned slowly to look directly at Hugh, the beginnings of a frown between his brows. “So why would you associate him with one of the King’s daughters and not the others? Is there something going on between them?”

  “Come.” De Payens stepped out and started to cross the narrow street. “It is generally accepted that Bishop Odo is … fond of the princess. But she is not yet fifteen, I think, while he is close to our age, so I doubt very seriously that anything is ‘going on between them,’ as you put it.”

  The big knight’s frown did not abate. “Very well, she’s but a child and he’s fond of her … Fond enough to offer her an escort at all times?”

  “Not at all times, no, but he has known the princess since she was a child, although from what I’ve heard, she is a child no longer. But Odo has been one of her father’s most loyal counselors for years, when Baldwin was Count of Edessa, long before he became King of Jerusalem. Here, we go this way.” The entrance to a narrow alley was barely discernible among the shadows, and his companions, who had been listening attentively, followed closely as he took them along the short length of the alley and then across another narrow passageway that led them out onto a broad street, across from the main entrance to an imposing, well-guarded building.

  “The Patriarch’s palace,” he said. “Stay close.”

  He made his way deftly through the traffic on the noisy thoroughfare, weaving through a sea of livestock that contained camels, horses, cattle, swine, and goats and a colorful, polyglot mass of people, and presented himself to the guard at the main entrance. Having been duly recognized and acknowledged as presenting no threat to the Archbishop, he and his three companions were shown into a high-ceilinged, richly furnished chamber where they were asked to wait until the Patriarch could see them.

  They barely had time to examine the room’s treasures, let alone grow bored, before the Patriarch Archbishop swept into the room unattended, smiling widely and welcoming de Payens effusively before turning to put his friends at ease with equal warmth and courtesy. Warmund de Picquigny carried himself with the air of a born politician and was an attractive man by anyone’s standards, tall and silver haired with an imperiously hooked nose and fine, white, even teeth. He seemed to smile constantly, even when he was displeased. He was a gracious host and quickly made his visitors feel welcome, but they spent little time in small talk, because all four of his visitors were soldiers, unaccustomed to the niceties of social intercourse and protocol. As soon as they were all seated, de Payens began to deliver the plea he had prepared, and from the moment the Archbishop discerned what was being asked of him, he sat rapt, making no move to interrupt the speaker or spoil the flow of what was being said.

  When de Payens eventually fell silent, Warmund de Picquigny sat frowning into the middle distance, and then he reached for a small silver bell, rang it, and replaced it on the small table by his elbow.

  “Your request is unique, my friend,” he said as the silver chimes died away. “In truth, I have never heard its like. It will require much thought.” The door at the end of the long room opened and a tall, dark-featured man wearing the purple of a bishop approached the Patriarch, who held up a restraining hand towards de Payens. “Forgive me,” he said quietly and turned to the newcomer. “Has word arrived from Acre?”

  “It has, my lord.”

  “Excellent.” The Patriarch turned back to his visitors. “You must excuse me, my friends, but we have been awaiting word most urgently from our associates in Acre, and I must plead the pressure of necessity in leaving you alone while I attend to it. I have merely to read the missive and make a decision based upon its contents. Once I have done that, Bishop Odo here will attend, on my behalf, to whatever must be done thereafter. It will not take long, so please do not feel any need to leave. I will have my people bring you food and drink, and I should be back here even before they have had time to do so. Please, I pray you, be at ease here and await me.”

  “He’s not going to grant it,” St. Agnan said as soon as the door had closed behind the Patriarch.

  They all looked at him, but St. Omer was the first to respond. “What makes you think that, Archibald?”

  “He made it obvious, didn’t he? To walk away and leave us sitting here before he’s heard us out? That’s a bad sign.”

  “He heard us out, Archibald, be in no doubt of that,” de Payens said. “And his leaving the room is the best sign we could have. He wants time alone now, to think about the pros and contras of what we are proposing. And the longer he remains away, the more thought he will be giving to our suggestions. Had he decided to reject our plea, he would have done so immediately and we would be on our way back to the caravanserai now. This man did not become Patriarch of Jerusalem by being stupid or indecisive.”

  “What about this Acre urgency, won’t that claim all his attention?”

  St. Agnan’s concern brought a smile to one corner of de Payens’s mouth. “There is no word from Acre. That bell is merely a tool the Patriarch uses to give himself time. Whoever comes in answer to the summons agrees to whatever the Archbishop asks or suggests, and an excuse is provided for the Archbishop to leave for as long as he may wish, without offending anyone unduly. In this instance, his departure works in our favor. The Archbishop is considering our case. We have done all we can do, and I don’t think we could have presented ourselves better than we did, so now we must wait for him to deliberate and reach the conclusion that will be most advantageous to him in both his personal and official capacities.

  “But I feel confident. He could have asked us to return tomorrow, or next week. That he has asked us to remain tells me that he is intrigued by our proposal. But what we are suggesting here would be deemed heresy by any other priest to whom we mentioned it, and we must not lose sight of that. De Picquigny is made of different stuff, however, and he has needs that exist nowhere else. All that remains now—and it is already out of our hands—is for him to decide whether the benefits of what we are proposing would be large enough to outweigh the risks involved for him should he decide to proceed.”

  The Patriarch’s house servants, all of them monks, bustled around them silently and efficiently for an hour, laying out a light but delicious meal of cold fowl, new-baked bread, fresh dates, and goat cheese, served with a variety of sherbets and chilled fruit drinks, and t
he four knights had barely finished clearing off everything on the table when Warmund de Picquigny returned. He graciously waved away any suggestion that he himself partake of the food—there was still a substantial platter of dates on the table—and poured himself a cup of some sparkling liquid before sitting down in the spot where he had sat originally, by the table with the silver bell. He made no mention of anything to do with Acre and instead launched straight into what the knights had come to talk about, speaking primarily to de Payens but looking constantly from one man to another, so that they all felt included in what he had to say.

  “Now, I need to understand, quite clearly and beyond doubt, exactly what it is that you are suggesting, because from what I have already heard, your proposal could make my life extremely difficult on several grounds. You are asking me to intercede on your behalf with your liege lords, because among you, you owe fealty to several noblemen, in order to persuade them to accept the loss of your services for a higher purpose and to permit all of you to commit yourselves to a life of penance, prayer, and seclusion. Is that correct?”

  Hugh de Payens nodded. “Aye, my lord Patriarch, that is the gist of it. We wish to be permitted to dedicate ourselves to God now, after a lifetime of dedicated service to our masters and our knightly vows.”

  There was a lengthy silence before de Picquigny solemnly shook his head. “I do not think I can achieve that for you, my friends,” he said quietly. “Not even with the best will in the world. Those knightly vows of which you speak are binding. They cannot be terminated at the will of any man, this side of death.”

  De Payens raised a hand as if in surprise. “Not even for the purposes of serving God better?”

  “As monks, you mean?” The Patriarch shook his head dubiously. “Who is to define the meaning of better? And does the improvement entail prayer alone? If so, I fear your cause is weakened, perhaps fatally. There is no shortage of monks in this land today, and all of them pray, some of them, I fear, better and more effectively than others. But all of them have another purpose, a function—a task or a duty, if you will—in addition to daily prayer and piety. The Knights of the Hospital are probably the most obvious example. They are nominally knights nowadays, but they are monks and always will be. Their function, unchanged since the day of their formation five hundred years ago, has always been to serve the sick and ailing pilgrims visiting the Holy Places. That is what they do, and as Patriarch of Jerusalem, I rely heavily on their abundant and unstinting services, self-sacrifice, and goodwill. But they are monks, adhering to the Rule of Saint Benedict, and all that they do is predicated upon, and subservient to, that sacred Rule. It gives them their authority and it adds structure to their lives … rigid structure … to every minute of their lives.” He looked from one to the other of them, the hint of a smile hovering on his lips. “Would you be willing to subject yourselves to the Rule of Saint Benedict, or have you other thoughts on that matter?”

  St. Agnan cleared his throat nervously. “Could we not have a rule of our own?”

  The Archbishop barked a laugh. “Aye, you could, and easily, once you had spent twenty to thirty years establishing yourselves and your dedication to discipline and prayer and a way of life that sets you far apart from any other order of monastics. But I suspect you might have something more immediate than that in mind. No?” He turned his eyes once more to Hugh de Payens. “Tell me, my friend, for I am curious: what … what prompted this? What was the thought, or argument, or incident that led to your decision to take this step and to come here seeking my support?”

  Placed squarely on the spot, Hugh felt his face flushing even as chagrin churned in the depths of his belly. He had always prided himself on his truthfulness, and had never knowingly told an outright lie to anyone, so even in this extremity, with so much of import depending on his next response, he could not, nor would he, lie directly to the Patriarch Archbishop. He shrugged his shoulders and had begun to spread his hands helplessly, on the point of admitting his entire design, when the truth came to him suddenly enough to make the pit of his stomach feel hollow. He did not question the intuition as anything other than direct revelation, and shaken as he was, he merely changed his gesture into one that suggested mild embarrassment, then clapped his palms together quietly, his mind racing as he sought the words that would serve him best without committing him to a deliberate lie.

  “I received …” He paused, frowned, and then began again, more emphatically, raising his eyes in pious suggestion towards the ceiling as he did so. “I received … unforeseen and unbelievable instructions, my lord Archbishop. Instructions that came to me in the beginning as unconditional demands, yet proved later to be formless, unreasonable, and without substance. They contained no guidance, nothing that I could see as concrete or absolute. I simply became aware that I was under a moral constraint to follow these demands, and that, my life being what it is today, I was, and I seemed destined to remain, incapable of obeying them or carrying them out. I awoke one morning with that impossibility lodged in my mind, and I have not been free of the urge to change it since that day.”

  The Archbishop’s eyebrows had risen high. “That is … impressive, Master de Payens. And might I be entitled to ask the substance of these … instructions?”

  “Aye, my lord, most certainly. And if you understand them more readily than I have, I will be grateful for any enlightenment you may shed on them. I was commanded to think back upon my life, to re-examine everything of import that had taken place since my boyhood, and then to bend my mind to finding ways and means of using all my skills and my abilities to bring about great changes in Jerusalem and to discover and reveal the truth underlying the heart of the Kingdom and the Holy City of Jerusalem.”

  Warmund de Picquigny sat silent, only the blankness of his expression indicating his inability to react immediately to this astonishing statement, and then he pulled himself together.

  “Your skills and abilities, you said. Yours alone.” He waved a hand to indicate St. Omer and the others. “And what about your friends?”

  De Payens shrugged, feeling very pleased with himself. The bait was cast, and he could sense the interest of the fish teasing at it. “I told them about my dilemma, shared my thoughts with them, and they became convinced that I had received a calling, a direct command, obscure as it might be, and they wished to aid me in my prosecution of it. That is why we are here.”

  “I see. And are there others who share your vision?” “Seven of us, my lord.”

  “Hmm …”

  “But we could be more. I told only my closest friends. Of the six I told, all decided to join me, but already they have other names, of friends of theirs, whom they would like to enroll.”

  “The noblemen would see this as a mutiny. You know that, do you not? They would see it as weakening their resources.”

  “How could it do that, my lord Archbishop? Even were our numbers doubled, we would not amount to twenty knights, all growing old after a lifetime of hard and loyal service. That could hardly be called a dilution of the strength of Jerusalem’s armies.”

  “Nonetheless, Sir Hugh, twenty veteran knights—”

  “Twenty aging knights, my lord Patriarch, and less than half of that, in truth, all of us past our prime.”

  The Patriarch pursed his lips, and de Payens continued. “Even so, my lord, I have to hark back to what you said before, about each order of monks having its own tasks, its own duty in addition to its daily routine of prayer and piety. We have no such incentive, no such direction. But we could have, were one selected for us that we found appropriate to what we are.” His voice, which had begun that statement full of enthusiasm, quickly dropped and became dispirited. “Ah, but then all we know how to do is fight, and monks do not fight …” He smiled and shook his head. “Ah, my lord Archbishop, were there such a thing as an order of warrior monks … what a contribution we could make to that! Now there would be a way for us to serve our God in piety and to great purpose. Pity such a thing may not
be. Still, we can learn to deal with other tasks. We can adapt. We would not lack in willingness to tackle anything assigned to us.”

  He stopped talking then, hearing the silence of his friends and imagining the creaking of wheels within the Archbishop’s mind. And then Warmund de Picquigny stood up and raised his right hand to bless them, so that they all knelt in front of him with their heads lowered.

  “Come again tomorrow, Hugh de Payens, at the same hour. I will think upon what you have said and will have an answer for you when you arrive. It may be one that you will wish to discuss afterwards with your friends here, but you may come alone to receive it. Afterwards, if there is more to be discussed, we will have time to do that. But for now, no word to anyone, from any of you, on what we have discussed today. Is that understood? Now go in peace.”

  GODFREY ST. OMER looked up from the board game he had been playing with Payn Montdidier, attracted by the movement as the door swung open noiselessly. “Ah,” he cried, “finally. We thought you were never coming back.”